What stage is the "just make the compiler define the undefined" stage?

Unaligned access? Packed structs. Compiler will magically generate the correct code, as if it had always known how to do it right all along! Because it has, in fact, always known how to do it right. It just didn't.

Strict aliasing? Union type punning. Literally documented to work in any compiler that matters, despite the holy C standard never saying so. Alternatively, just disable it straight up: -fno-strict-aliasing. Enjoy reinterpreting memory as you see fit. You might hit some sharp edges here and there but they sure as hell aren't gonna be coming from the compiler.

Overflow? Just make it defined: -fwrapv. Replace +, -, * with __builtin_*_overflow while you're at it, and you even get explicit error checking for free. Nice functional interface. Generates efficient code too.

The "acceptance" stage is really "nobody sane actually cares about the C standard". The standard is garbage, only the compilers matter. And it turns out that compilers have plenty of extremely useful functions that let you side step most if not all of this. People just don't use this because they want to write "portable" "standard" C. The real acceptance is to break out of that mindset.

Somehow I built an entire lisp interpreter in freestanding C that actually managed to pass UBSan just by following the above logic. I was actually surprised at first: I expected it to crash and burn, but it didn't. So if I can do it, then anyone can do it too.

Author here.

> -Acceptance: "Just dont write UB."

The point of my article is that this is not possible. This cannot be our end state, as long as humans are the ones writing the code. No human can avoid writing UB in C/C++.

"Just don't write UB" sounds like still part of the bargaining stage at best

In C, acceptance is "I will write UB and it will eventually lead to something bad happening"

> -Acceptance: "Just dont write UB."

Just switch to a saner language.

And before I get attacked for being a Rust shill, I meant Java :P

The bar is so low it's floating near the center of the Earth.

> -Denial: "I know what signed overflow does on my machine."

Or you just not skip the introductory pages, that tell you what the language philosophy of C is, and why there is UB. Yes, UB can be a struggle, but the first four steps are entirely unnecessary. It means that you do not actually understand the core concepts of the very same language you are using, which is kinda stupid.