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Isn't this a potential for a lot of crazy bugs then?

I've never used Wolfram in earnest (touched it once in undergrad ever so briefly) so I may be misunderstanding.

EDIT: I see that the documentation for FunctionCompile indicates it's for pure functions only.https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/FunctionCompile.h...

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In Wolfram Language, a "pure function" is what others would call an "anonymous function" or a "lambda". It doesn't actually imply the lack of side-effects.

The older Compile function also does the same thing when there's an error.

Given the difficulties of doing something fancier, I think it's a reasonable strategy. Mutating state that doesn't originate in a function isn't too common, and less so with the kinds of functions you'd compile. If the compiled function fails, you probably have some other bug in your code anyways.

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