I think threads, atomics and bounds checking were all TR proposals up until C11. Then they added the conditional (optional) features. Threads and atomics are ma

I think threads, atomics and bounds checking were all TR proposals up until C11. Then they added the conditional (optional) features. Threads and atomics are mandatory and bounds checking and 'analyzability' are conditional. If you have to deal with strings in C more then likely you have written a string interface with bounds checking. Its not clear if it needs to be standard so its good that its optional. Icc, gcc and clang support it so I would not hesitate to use it. My point was that 'safety' in C is still more or less a process of training the programmer rather then a language feature. And that was and still is a design goal. But at least now you can point to the bounds checking functions and other new features as an example of how to get there. I'm not going to argue whether C is safe. Or whether XYZ is safer then C. Thats way of topic.