Wouldn’t existing programs just continue working? What the author did was adding new types, not modifying or removing existing ones.
Only ones which don't have variables named `i8` or `b32` (which is common, but not for booleans).
I've seen many projects which used the pattern [a-z][1-9]+ as variables. Those programs with a variable called `i8` won't compile if the standard made a type called `i8`.
In particular, the standard reserves entire patterns to itself, so it cannot reserve the pattern of [a-z][0-9]+. They could, and did, reserve the pattern *int*_t for themselves.
In my mind that's not a problem with the decisions taken by the author of the article, it's more of a symptom of C's limitations.
For libraries, yes, but we're talking about why the standard didn't do it.
The standard did not want[1] to reserve keywords that current programs were already using.
A library that conflicts on keywords will only break with those programs that use it. A standard that conflicts on keywords breaks all programs in that language.
> In my mind that's not a problem with the decisions taken by the author of the article, it's more of a symptom of C's limitations.
One of the constraints of taking decisions is to work within the limits existing framework - if you're avoiding the alternatives that don't break, then it's the decision-makers bug, not the frameworks.
The framework has limitations, widely published and known. You make decisions within those limitations.
[1] Although, they do do it, it's only with relectance, not on a whim to avoid typing a few characters)
Depends. See this snippet: https://www.godbolt.org/z/5T5jz47q4
Cannot declare a variable called `u8` when there is a typedef of `u8`.
And even when you can declare a variable called (for example) `int`, that effectively "breaks" the program by not being even a tiny bit readable anymore.
What's that got to do with not breaking existing programs?