Used to have IB: that broker is no joke. I would see ads on TV of $7 a trade while I was paying their crazy .001 cents per share or whatever their price was. Great paper trading account, and a Java/C++ API for everything. Plus level-2 data.
Can't upvote enough. I think these changes could also be made in a way that can be mechanically-translatable.
For example: removing the register keyword, always requiring a return statement, etc etc.
A lot of changes can me made that will make static analysis easier.
There will always be people with 50 year old code bases that will never change (and some c89 compiler will always be there for them), but the language is pervasive enough that it deserves progressive changes to make it (even) simpler and safer and slightly more high level.
These kids with their RH accounts have no idea..