this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2026
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C Programming Language

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Why do some C devs prefer using mainly C89 over C23? (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by BlackRoseAmongThorns@slrpnk.net to c/c_lang@programming.dev
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I have watched some developers giving advice about using C for general software development, i noticed that a not insignificant amount of them are strictly using C89, vaguely gesturing that more recent versions of C are less dependable, or more broken.

I would appreciate if anyone here can explain the specifics, as me not being a C developer (yet) and looking over the source code of some libraries which do heavily use modern C features, for example to have a defer-like macro (using attributes, or the 2 for statement trick), or generic data structures (using manual name mangling).

I understand these examples are strictly not how C is usually used, and are common in other more modern languages, which may turn some developers away from using these, my main question is "why exactly?".

I don't mind being given further reading about this, so if you have an article in mind, it too would be greatly appreciated.

note: in the title i referred to C23, but it could be anything post C89/C99 depending on the subject matter.

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[โ€“] BlackRoseAmongThorns@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago

That's very fair for the linux kernel, I'm aware that they use more modern features of C, though i have no idea to what extent.

It was part of the inspiration for asking this question to begin with.