these seem like tradeoffs which are straightforward to understand, which allow for simpler ABI & runtime. sure, the "UX" of the language suffers compared to e.

these seem like tradeoffs which are straightforward to understand, which allow for simpler ABI & runtime. sure, the "UX" of the language suffers compared to e.g. Python, but at least the mechanics are easier to understand. If you want Python style string handling in C you could just use the Python C-API.