In order to generate tight, fast code, we have eliminated quite a bit of error checking that was done in earlier compilers (such as Division-by-Zero, Numeric Overflow, and most other numeric checking errors). While this results in code that is considerably smaller and faster than any other Windows compiler product, it does put more of an onus on the programmer to write code that is bug-free, or code that does its own error checking and validation of its data.
For example, an application that performs exponentiation of a negative value to a fractional power (-5^1.9) will not trigger a run-time error, but the result of the expression will be undefined. Therefore, it makes sense for the application to make some attempt to validate or restrict the numeric range of the arguments of this kind of expression.
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