December 10, 2025
Old code, new beef
Dependable C
A “boring” C guide drops; the crowd argues over typos, vibes, and what C even is
TLDR: Dependable C proposes a minimalist guide to writing C that’s portable and long-lasting, pushing back on newer, complex standards. The comments split between praise for “boring but reliable” code, complaints about a rough website, and a fresh round of “is C just assembly?” debates—plus jokes about vibecoders.
A new project called Dependable C promises a back-to-basics guide for writing C code that works everywhere, forever. It champions a small, portable subset of C and shrugs at shiny new standards like C23 and “C2Y,” noting only a couple compilers even fully support them. It even admits some rare “undefined behavior” (UB—code that can act unpredictably) might be okay in practice. Cue the comment drama.
One camp loves the mission: make C boring again—as in stable and compatible. Fans name-drop Orthodox C++ and boringcc, cheering the “Newscaster C” vibe. But skeptics fire back, saying the site looks half-baked—“Where’s the meat?”—and point to inconsistent headings like “C isn’t not a high level assembler” that turned into a grammar fistfight. The philosophical squabble explodes: Is C a friendly language or just a fancy assembly tool? One commenter calls that debate a category error, others say that’s exactly the point. Meanwhile, the meme crowd wonders if “vibecoders” are rediscovering C like it’s vinyl records.
The result: a spicy mix of nostalgia, pragmatism, and pedantry. Even critics agree the goal—code that outlives trends and toolchains—is worth fighting for; they just want the guide to ship with fewer vibes and more specifics.
Key Points
- •Dependable C aims to document a subset of C that is widely portable, compilable, and dependable across real-world implementations.
- •The article asserts that recent ISO C standards (C23, upcoming C2Y) are complex, diverge from Classic C, and have limited implementation support.
- •Reading older C standards alone is insufficient because they lack consolidated deprecations and notes on poorly supported features; Dependable C seeks to fill this gap.
- •Dependable C is not a style guide; it prioritizes compatibility and can be used alongside safety standards like MISRA.
- •The project will include guidance on using certain later-version features dependably and acknowledges rare cases where technically undefined behavior may be dependable in practice, while warning that some standard-compliant features (e.g., Annex K) lack implementations.