It was a "good" way to catch a certain class of bugs on X86, while introducing a different class of (arguably) harder to catch bugs.
With VS .NET (VC7.0), the C++ compiler no longer defaulted uninitialized memory in debug builds.
Our software didn't just run on x86 (windows/linux), but also SGI MIPS (Irix), VAX (VMS), DEC Alpha (Tru64), AND PowerPC (VxWorks), so across all those compilers, we ended up having portable and robust code.
With VS .NET (VC7.0), the C++ compiler no longer defaulted uninitialized memory in debug builds.
Our software didn't just run on x86 (windows/linux), but also SGI MIPS (Irix), VAX (VMS), DEC Alpha (Tru64), AND PowerPC (VxWorks), so across all those compilers, we ended up having portable and robust code.