Addendum: Think about volatile like you think about const. If you use it to declare memory that is in fact different, it totally makes sense. If you do other we

Addendum: Think about volatile like you think about const. If you use it to declare memory that is in fact different, it totally makes sense. If you do other weird things, it breaks (just like const). This is unlike signed/unsigned storage specifiers which are not really attributes of the memory, and which create some serious complexities that lead to weird situations. But for practical reasons there haven't been any successful attempts to get rid of them. Again, not defending volatile at all. Just saying that it probably made sense at the time at that it is not as ill-conceived as you imply. Volatile is cruft, but certainly does not disqualify the language. Just use modern synchronization primitives instead, like any other reasonable person.