[flohofwoe]

> I finally learned C, and came to realize that there aren't actually any compilers that implement all of the C spec.

I think the main reason for this is that the C spec was always just an attempt to somewhat harmonize the already existing features of different C compilers, e.g. implementations come first and then after one or two decades, the C committee tries to standardize the features that have survived. That doesn't mean that all C compiler vendors immediatedly hop on board.

But then there's of course MSVC which after a few hopeful years of modernizing their C frontend now seems to have abandondend it again (I wonder though if MSVC as a whole has been abandondend looking at the abundance of red for MSVC in the C++23 and C++26 tables: https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/compiler_support.html)

While looking like a weird approach at first, it has definitely worked better than the C++ committee's approach to accept 'ideas' into the standard without even a proof-of-concept implementation - e.g. the one good thing about C++ is that it acts as a filter to stupid ideas before they can make it into C ;)

[pjmlp]

I think it is a side effect of SFI (Secure Safety Initiative) at Microsoft, Azure and Windows development guidelines to use managed safe languages or Rust, leaving C and C++ for existing code bases.

Even though Microsoft employees tend to dismiss this at Reddit discussions, the lack of resources is quite visible.

[flohofwoe]

In that case they should really just deprecate MSVC and point C and C++ devs to Clang. Would make life a lot easier for library authors.

[pjmlp]

Clang is included on Visual Studio installer for ages.

It was the official answer back when they decided only to do C++ and leave C behind, until the change of heart with C11/C17 support.

Also note Apple and Google aren't any longer the nice sponsors of clang, hence it has also lost steam as other contributors aren't at the same level as they used to be.