[dgb23]

I think when someone says „I want a C that’s cleaner and has some simple, generally loved features“ they don’t think of C++?

[pjmlp]

Probably not, but they should.

C already felt primitive in the mid-1990's, and by C++98 most of those features were available.

So they can use C++ for those fixes, with its JavaScript/TypeScript kind of symbiotic relationship for better or worse, or stick to C and keep waiting for such language, that will most likely require parsing include files with some kind of tooling.