[GianFabien]

Maybe I'm being dense. To me it appears that the standards are telling compiler writers what should be done. In doing so the compilers will become ever more complex and thus bug-prone.

I learnt C back when K&R (first edition) was the reference. Ok, it was hardly much more than a universal assembler to make every computer look like a PDP-11. In my experience C is the language to use when you want to be close to the metal. For the rest I use which ever high-level language/environment is best suited. Admittedly some FFI are a pain to use, but once you get the boilerplate bedded down your much higher level language gets the coordination done.

[RobotToaster]

>To me it appears that the standards are telling compiler writers what should be done.

Isn't that what standards are supposed to do?

[JonChesterfield]

Traditionally they recorded existing practice and gently encouraged diverging implementations to converge.

The alternative approach is to invent things by committee, hopefully with some implementers watching, and hope for the best.