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From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Computer architects leaving Intel...
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2024 21:03:00 +0200
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On 13/09/2024 17:55, Thomas Koenig wrote:
> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> schrieb:
>>
>> Most of the commonly used parts of C99 have been "safe" to use for 20
>> years.  There were a few bits that MSVC did not implement until
>> relatively recently, but I think even have caught up now.
> 
> What about VLAs?

I don't know if MSVC has VLAs - it's not a tool I ever use, so I don't 
have the details in my head.

But perhaps VLAs don't count as "commonly used parts of C99".  I have 
only occasionally had use for real VLAs in my own programming (more 
often I have local arrays whose size is a const known at compile time, 
but not syntactically a constant expression - then you have something 
that is technically a VLA but which the compiler can handle just like a 
normal fixed size array).  A lot of people seem to get in a fluster when 
you talk about VLAs, and think their inclusion in the C standards was 
inspired by the demons trying escape people's noses.

There are a few more obscure parts of C99 that are often poorly 
implemented, such as some of the floating point details, and many 
embedded compilers omit much of the wide character stuff.

I suppose you could argue that my claim is tautological - parts of C99 
that are not implemented in the mainstream C compilers will of course 
not be commonly used!

> 
>> There are only two serious, general purpose C compilers in mainstream
>> use - gcc and clang, and both support almost all of C23 now.  But it
>> will take a while for the more niche tools, such as some embedded
>> compilers, to catch up.
> 
> It is almost impossible to gather statistics on compiler use,
> especially with free compilers, but what about MSVC and icc?

MSVC is rarely used for C - it is primarily a C++ tool.  Traditionally, 
you have had closer to modern C support using MSVC in C++ mode than in C 
mode.

As for icc, I don't think it is nearly as popular as it used to be, but 
I have no statistics to back that up.  However, I believe it has kept up 
with the standards (as well as compatibility with many of gcc and 
clang's extensions).  I don't know about C23 support.