[coreboot] [RFC] Explicitly use C89 (was: Setting C99 by default)

[Gerd Hoffmann]

On Di, 2016-11-29 at 22:40 +0100, Stefan Tauner wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Nov 2016 09:09:48 +0100
> Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel at redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Di, 2016-11-29 at 00:41 +0100, Stefan Tauner wrote:
> > > Paul can you please - without looking it up - name two new features of
> > > C99 compared to C89?  
> > 
> > Named initializers.
> > That alone is reason enough to prefer c99 over c89 IMHO.
> 
> You are not Paul. I was asking him specifically because I don't think
> that he could name them but still tries to argue about such things
> although he is not proficient enough to evaluate the implications of
> such decisions (and I can't stand that at all). Even with good
> intentions this is a dangerous approach on improving code quality and
> needs to be countered.

I think switching to a more modern C standard is a good approach on
improving code quality.

But, yes, taking the "just flip the switch and see what happens"
approach is dangerous as it can introduce subtle bugs due to language
changes (aliasing rules for example, don't remember whenever that was in
c99 or in c11 though).

cheers,
  Gerd