The people who understand that it can be either, depending on a compiler switch, are exactly the people who use an explicit sign (typically via a typedef) to en

The people who understand that it can be either, depending on a compiler switch, are exactly the people who use an explicit sign (typically via a typedef) to ensure their code always works. The people who say that char is de facto signed and everyone should just deal with it, are the people who end up writing broken code.