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by svnpenn 1617 days ago
> A great strength of C is that if you want more features you just go to a subset of C++, no need to add them to C. C++ is the big, ambitious, kitchen-sink language. When C++ exists we don't need to bloat C.

This is a rationalization, and a bad one. When your solution is "just pull in another programming language", you have a problem.
1 comments
dandotway 1617 days ago
"Another programming language" cannot even meaningfully exist if all programming languages are forced to have the same feature set. Should Python get C-like low-level pointer manipulation so that Python users don't need to "pull in another programming language" of C to do pointer manipulation?

C doesn't need "defer" because C programmers have managed since the 1970s to implement operating systems, compilers, interpreters, editors, etc., just fine without it. Those who want a bigger C can use C++, this pond is big enough for two fish.

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svnpenn 1617 days ago
> all programming languages are forced to have the same feature set

Good straw man there. Did I say all languages need to be exactly the same? This comment just looks like something you can fall back on to reject any feature addition to C. Its too bad really, as its sentiment like this that is killing the language. Many people are sick and tired of old, crusty C, where it takes close to a decade to add or change anything. I like the idea of a small, performant language, but when you put such a stranglehold on changes, you choke out most chances of innovation.

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dandotway 1617 days ago
> I like the idea of a small, performant language

So the earliest C compilers were under 5000 lines of C+asm:

  https://github.com/mortdeus/legacy-cc
If you want a minimal "standard committee approved" C89 compiler then David Hanson's lcc and Fabrice Bellard's tcc both come out to over 30,000 lines. To understand C89 fully you at a minimum have to read a ~220 page (14,248 line) copy of the (draft) ANSI standard:

  http://port70.net/~nsz/c/c89/c89-draft.txt
I don't know what the smallest C23 compiler would be with all the new features since C89 added, but it's at the point where a single human can't implement a C compiler anymore. It's becoming a language only rich corporations have the wealth and power to implement and steer.
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