I think you're making it too complex (or else I am). I think the OP is making a kind of "batteries included" argument (a la Python) -- that is to say, "it's be

I think you're making it too complex (or else I am). I think the OP is making a kind of "batteries included" argument (a la Python) -- that is to say, "it's better when the language has everything built in, as opposed to farming things off to external, 3rd party libraries." All's I'm saying is that that seems to me pretty silly. It can't be about reducing the user's burden, because you're going to burden the user anyway with all kinds of toolchain dependencies. It can't be about the runtime, because the user will, except in rare circumstances, hardly notice; if they have autotools, they have glib. I can think of million reasons not to use C. But, "Well, I don't know. I'd have to use a third party library. . ." Really?