I agree, type punning exists, this is why I mentioned `union`, invented to make some type punning easier. An explicit mechanism like that is essential. Doing it

I agree, type punning exists, this is why I mentioned `union`, invented to make some type punning easier. An explicit mechanism like that is essential. Doing it implicitly is, to my mind, too dangerous to be beneficial. Same with undefined behavior. I'm fine with implementation-dependent behavior (like what size is `int`, etc). But modern compilers see UD and feel free to do anything, even removing the code in question. Such things should not be silent, or even a warning. Instead it should be something like `unsafe` sections in Rust: "I know what I'm doing, the usual safety assumptions are irrelevant here, do what I literally say". Doing weird things is sometimes required e.g. to handle memory-mapped hardware registers, etc. But such areas should be clearly delineated, for they are usually few. They also tend to not be portable. A CPU burning up, hardware malfunctioning, etc is usually a situation where all bets are off. An unanticipated pointer aliasing in a trivial program running on perfectly working hardware is a different case.