3 ms·

Don't know if this is an unpopular opinion or not: Today if you are using C it's because you HAVE to (embedded toolchain, historical code, etc). In that case,

Don't know if this is an unpopular opinion or not: Today if you are using C it's because you HAVE to (embedded toolchain, historical code, etc). In that case, you use the C you find, not the C in the next version of the standard. So I find the C standard committee's work... uninteresting. Sorry, guys.

flohofwoe 3y ago
That's essentially true and actually one of the strengths of C, that the ISO standard is relatively unimportant for real-world projects. The standard is just the minimal supported common language core of a family of C dialects, with the actually interesting stuff happening outside the standard in language extensions and 3rd-party libraries. In a way we can "thank" Microsoft for that. If the MSVC team hadn't boycotted the C standard for nearly two decades, adhering to the C standard would have been more important. But since MSVC didn't support anything past C89 anyway, the C world moved on without them by switching to different compilers.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  It is easy to blame Microsoft, while forgeting the huge world of embedded devices with proprietary compilers, many of which are still stuck C89 with extensions, as the tiny CPUs hardly do anything better. If anything, I was saddned that they backtraced on their decision to focus on C++. Then again, nowadays thanks to the ongoing security bills, Azure business unit has a roadamp to only use Rust for new systems programming projects, and C#/Go for when managed languages are not an issue, while Visual C++ team seems mostly focused on keeping game developers happy and little else.
  - flohofwoe 3y ago
    SDCC, which is essentially a hobbyist retro-computing compiler for 8-bit and embedded CPUs had and still has better C standard support than MSVC: https://sdcc.sourceforge.net/ https://sdcc.sourceforge.net/ If a couple open source devs can easily out-perform the MSVC team, Visual Studio really is in trouble ;)
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      SDCC was certainly not what I had in mind during my comment, rather stuff from TI, Keil, Microe, and co. Hobbyist retro-computing compiler for 8-bit and embedded CPUs is hardly anything to worry about for Microsoft.

flohofwoe 3y ago

That's essentially true and actually one of the strengths of C, that the ISO standard is relatively unimportant for real-world projects. The standard is just the minimal supported common language core of a family of C dialects, with the actually interesting stuff happening outside the standard in language extensions and 3rd-party libraries. In a way we can "thank" Microsoft for that. If the MSVC team hadn't boycotted the C standard for nearly two decades, adhering to the C standard would have been more important. But since MSVC didn't support anything past C89 anyway, the C world moved on without them by switching to different compilers.

pjmlp 3y ago
It is easy to blame Microsoft, while forgeting the huge world of embedded devices with proprietary compilers, many of which are still stuck C89 with extensions, as the tiny CPUs hardly do anything better. If anything, I was saddned that they backtraced on their decision to focus on C++. Then again, nowadays thanks to the ongoing security bills, Azure business unit has a roadamp to only use Rust for new systems programming projects, and C#/Go for when managed languages are not an issue, while Visual C++ team seems mostly focused on keeping game developers happy and little else.
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  SDCC, which is essentially a hobbyist retro-computing compiler for 8-bit and embedded CPUs had and still has better C standard support than MSVC: https://sdcc.sourceforge.net/ https://sdcc.sourceforge.net/ If a couple open source devs can easily out-perform the MSVC team, Visual Studio really is in trouble ;)
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    SDCC was certainly not what I had in mind during my comment, rather stuff from TI, Keil, Microe, and co. Hobbyist retro-computing compiler for 8-bit and embedded CPUs is hardly anything to worry about for Microsoft.