My problem is that if you're an actual C superset, you're carrying a lot of baggage that will permanently compromise the best case of what you can ever become.

My problem is that if you're an actual C superset, you're carrying a lot of baggage that will permanently compromise the best case of what you can ever become. These days, with C standards back on a regular cadence, the thing you have to be a superset of is also a moving target, and you have to make sure your extensions don't end up incompatible with future C changes. If you succeed enough, the C standard has to be worried about compatibility with you in return. Even the most conservative C supersets like non-standard GNU C have created friction for what the actual ISO standard can do in future, including the highly demanded addition of nested functions [1]. One could almost argue that the long-term value of that C superset will be net-negative precisely because it was successful enough to become a permanent interoperability hazard for C itself. (They could have avoided that by not claiming to be C at build time, but that would have also avoided anyone ever using it, just like almost all of the other supersets). C++ isn't even a C superset and still that relationship creates friction both ways [2]. Now if you're not a C superset, you have a more difficult adoption story and that is enough to kill a language before it ever has a chance. Even so, far more languages have succeeded by tackling interoperability problems than by being supersets. Rust has a fair amount of friction binding to C, but people see enough value in overcoming that; and part of what people claim to love about Zig is that it has much less friction, right down to the build tooling. It's looking like interoperability is increasingly winning over creating supersets. Related: In the "C++ successor language" space race, almost every candidate is trying to be low-friction to interoperate without being a superset, because in C++'s case there's even more baggage to want to avoid. [1] https://thephd.dev/binary-banshees-digital-demons-abi-c-c++-help-me-god-please#nested-functions-are-an-abi-break https://thephd.dev/binary-banshees-digital-demons-abi-c-c++-... [2] https://cor3ntin.github.io/posts/c/ https://cor3ntin.github.io/posts/c/