> The code you posted causes an infinite loop in the 2.x branch as well.
> Anyway, I do not see how crashing is a desired result.

I do not see what the "desired result" is in your example. The code is
obviously wrong. Did you get hit by that in production code or is it
just a proof-of-concept?

Also, this is not an actual crash (as in "segmentation fault"). It is
the interpreter /trying to protect itself from a crash/ which would be
caused by a stack overflow, and your code is trying to circumvent that
protection.

The fact that some errors cannot be recovered from is an unavoidable
fact of life. We may try to "fix" this particular case, but it will do
nothing for the more general case, so we might as well not "fix" it.