So it turns out I'm kind of wrong! My arguments for jumping "inward" still seem pretty valid, but they don't generalize to jumping "outward". And indeed, GCC

So it turns out I'm kind of wrong! My arguments for jumping "inward" still seem pretty valid, but they don't generalize to jumping "outward". And indeed, GCC actually allows this, but you need to use the right syntax: https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Nested-Functions.html https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Nested-Functions.html