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I think when someone says „I want a C that’s cleaner and has some simple, generally loved features“ they don’t think of C++?

Probably not, but they should.

C already felt primitive in the mid-1990's, and by C++98 most of those features were available.

So they can use C++ for those fixes, with its JavaScript/TypeScript kind of symbiotic relationship for better or worse, or stick to C and keep waiting for such language, that will most likely require parsing include files with some kind of tooling.

I didn't mention, but minimal is something I desire in a language too. Honestly, C++ is such a "design by committee" kitchen sink language that I have no interest in ever touching it. Yes, you can restrict yourself to a subset of the language, but then every time you need a library, or need to find some info on how to do something on SO or whatever, you have to deal with the rest of the language. You cannot simply ignore it because everyone else won't.

There is also a bit of committee on everything WG14 does since C89.

C++ has proper package management?

vcpkg and conan nowadays.

Not using one of them is making oneselfs live difficult on purpose.