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From: Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Type system protocols rest atop fundamental data
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2017 09:11:47 -0700
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Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> writes:
> On 16/06/17 04:12, Ian Collins wrote:
> <snip>
>>
>> More strongly typed enums is one case of the C++ committee listening to
>> the programmer community.  Why C didn't follow suit is a mystery to me.
>
> Has it not occurred to you that the C committee might have stuck to less 
> strongly typed enums because they, too, listened to the programmer 
> community?
>
> There's a *reason* we have more than one language.

Here's what the ANSI C Rationale https://www.lysator.liu.se/c/rat/ says.
It doesn't directly address "listening to the programmer community", but
the desire to reflect common practice and avoid breaking existing code
points in that direction.

    Enumerations permit the declaration of named constants in
    a more convenient and structured fashion than #define's.
    Both enumeration constants and variables behave like integer
    types for the sake of type checking, however.

    The Committee considered several alternatives for enumeration
    types in C:

        1. leave them out;
        2. include them as definitions of integer constants;
        3. include them in the weakly typed form of the UNIX C compiler;
        4. include them with strong typing, as, for example, in Pascal.

    The Committee adopted the second alternative on the grounds that
    this approach most clearly reflects common practice.  Doing away
    with enumerations altogether would invalidate a fair amount of
    existing code; stronger typing than integer creates problems, for
    instance, with arrays indexed by enumerations.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Working, but not speaking, for JetHead Development, Inc.
"We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this."
    -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"