> If the complexity can be reduced (by say, adding garbage collection) Adding a garbage collector would make code more complex, not simpler, as it would break

> If the complexity can be reduced (by say, adding garbage collection) Adding a garbage collector would make code more complex, not simpler, as it would break RAII. I spend a lot more time dealing with memory and resource allocation issues in GC languages than I do in C++. In languages like Python we have to use `with`, and this is harder to use in the client code, and the class is much harder to write, than anything in C++ where we just add a destructor to clean up. std::vector<char> data(10 << 20); std::ifstream("/dev/urandom", std::ios::binary).read(data.data(), data.size()); The above code can never leak (either memory or file handles) under any circumstances and the implementations of the types involved push zero overhead/boilerplate on me as a user of them. I think if you want to reduce complexity of C the place that everybody else is looking is at how to allow opting in and out of legacy support.