Apparently Dennis Ritchie was set against adding even user-optional features to address C's performance limitations versus Fortran ("If you want Fortran, you kn

Apparently Dennis Ritchie was set against adding even user-optional features to address C's performance limitations versus Fortran ("If you want Fortran, you know where to find it.") I think that's (at least partly) why they started showing up in C99, after the first round of standardisation which he wasn't involved with.