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Like. So many people shit on VLAs for being too underspecified and undefined (correct), but then conflate that with it not seeing "greater uptake" and like. No? That's not true? Just talk to anyone working in HPC, it's the fucking bread and butter.

You Are Not The Only Programmer On Earth. Your Domain Is Not The Only Domain That Exists.

You can't say "C is used literally everywhere!" and then put on your blinders when people from those communities bring their extensions from their domains to the wider C programming language, to try and get better support both inside and outside of their domain! That's LITERALLY how the charter works! VLAs were WIDELY implemented when they were standardized, they were WIDELY used when they were standardized, it's ahistorical bullshit to pretend it isn't or wasn't!

They have CLEAR issues with how underspecified and undefined they can be, how much they rely on your implementer to be a literal Divine Hero to get it right, but you cannot be serious that they're (a) not used and (b) not useful. Even _Generic was introduced because of C, not other languages! It was literally HAND-DESIGNED, BY IMPLEMENTERS (not the Committee!!!) to get the job done! Every single time we have this fucking conversation I lose my mind because the actual history is right there, in the paper trail, it's WAY more transparent than WG21/C++, because meeting minutes are ALSO public record! You don't have to just assume or make shit up, it's RIGHT THERE.