Is it feasible to create a new language by adding features to C
just as was done with C++?
just as was done with C++?
As soon as you change anything in a breaking way, start requiring your own compiler/transpiler, or introduce new idioms, you end up losing the things that keep C alive.
Users of C either like it exactly the way it is, or have to use a specific C version due to a vendor dependency or compliance.
An upgraded C not approved by the standards body gives you yet another niche language that is not C, but is still burdened with its old flaws.
I really don't understand why people bring up other languages when one is discussing implementation of some "advanced/tricky/hackish/new" features in C. It is not as if the implementer does not know about the ease of availability in other languages but there is always some set of criteria which prevents switching to a new language.
On a related note, there is a dearth of written/learning material (books etc.) cataloging and explaining advanced architecture/design/implementation patterns in C though we know they exist in the tons of industrial-strength codebases out there.
There is also the fact that when you see an implementation in C of some feature from another language you better understand language design pragmatics eg. implementing inheritance and virtual functions in C gives you insight into how they work in C++/Java/C#/etc.
For example, when I worked on writing embedded software for autopilots, we had 2 files, common.so and common.h that contained essentially a super robust typing framework. The way it worked is that you defined types through the provided functions at the beginning of your code, and all of the definitions were stored and checked at runtime at the beginning before the main execution loop took effect. So basically taking what a more robust language compiler would do and just moving that processing to the start of execution.
I use something similar for my local llm setup at home, where i can have my agent basically write tools for itself and when the tool fails, the error code makes it pretty easy for the agent to fix.