>The real problem is that C users have been lied to.
I think the real problem is that the committee is creating a language that the users neither need nor understand. The users want a language where pointers are, in fact, just address.
And pointers weren’t addresses before either. My favorite example of “pointers aren’t addresses” is this kind of code:
int a[…]; int b[…]; /* … */ a[i] = 0; b[j] = 1; return a[i];
Ignoring this discussion for a moment, wouldn’t you expect `return a[i];` to optimize to `return 0;` here? After all, `a` and `b` are disjoint arrays! I’m sure many would be disappointed if the compiler did not do that optimization, right?
If I wanted language with clever optimisations I'd go for something way higher level like lisp, haskell. Most optimisations are often only useful to make sure you can program generically without a headache. Optimizing code generated by macros or monomorphisation/type specialisation/template instantiation/however you call it is really useful. Is it worth it otherwise? For me the difference between gcc -O1 and -O3 suggest this is not worth it in the domain where c is typically used.