It's not meant as a slight against EEs. It's just my experience that people with EE backgrounds tend to be more invested in becoming very skilled with "ANSI" C

It's not meant as a slight against EEs. It's just my experience that people with EE backgrounds tend to be more invested in becoming very skilled with "ANSI" C (plus whatever extensions help them get things done) while people with CS backgrounds are more likely to be interested in chasing new and "better" ways of doing things like C99 VLAs or C11 generic selection or a new language. It seems like your experience has been the opposite of mine so maybe it's wrong for me to generalize.