New language features?

It seems to me that C could be improved by adding a few more features
to the standard. I read some of the recent thread "Criticism of the C
programming language ??????" which shows a lot of opinions for and
against adding language features.

What makes sense to me is to incorporate features that are commonly
available as compiler extensions (i.e. anonymous unions) into the
standard, because they are well-tested, and obviously have many actual
users interested. It also would not put a big burden on compiler
developers. Maybe the formal standards process is just too complicated
to allow the addition of a small number of minor additions? Maybe it
would be useful to have a well-defined, standardized set of language
extensions to make it easier to write portable code? Or, maybe it is
too hard to get everyone to agree, and I should be thankful at the
current level of C standardization?
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Teaching new tricks to an old dog (C++ -->Ada)
    ... > the standard language. ... Or did they just implemented some 80% of the new features? ... there was a fully compiant C compiler available. ...
    (comp.lang.ada)
  • Re: Teaching new tricks to an old dog (C++ -->Ada)
    ... > the standard language. ... Or did they just implemented some 80% of the new features? ... there was a fully compiant C compiler available. ...
    (comp.lang.cpp)
  • Re: Specifications for operator overloading
    ... but in the real world C is the language in which operating ... of features? ... the compiler writers ... standard through a back door, the same one they are trying to use now ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: Why code completion and early error checking are needed
    ... > identifiers visible in the current scope when it provides code completion ... You can if you rely on parsing standard code only, ... > large-scale projects using a different programming language. ... Most of the features above can be implemented using the existing language. ...
    (comp.lang.cpp)
  • Re: Cracking DES with C++ is faster than Java?
    ... introduced since the last C++ standard). ... there is no intrinsic penalty for C features in C++. ... but as soon as you use a feature in one language that isn't in the ... standard class instance ...
    (comp.lang.cpp)