On Fri, 14 Aug 2026, Bernd Petrovitsch wrote: > > > Then why not have one official big header file for the whole standard? > > > > > > #include <stdlibc.h> > > > > That wouldn't be too unreasonable nowadays I suppose, not IMHO anyway. > > The trivial counter example is windows.h (since ages). And at one point > "they" introduced the #define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN (probably) for a > reason ...
I'm not sure what you refer to, is that Microsoft Windows? How would it be relevant to *nix libc? Back in 1970s-80s when the C language standard was being shaped computers had memories in the range of kilobytes and storage was often floppy disks with all the performance implications, plus computing power in the low MHz range. Nowadays we have memory amounts in the high range of gigabytes to terabytes and storage that has throughput of gigabytes per second, and computing power many orders of magnitude better if you factor in not only the clock rate increase, but all the contemporary architectural features as well. How could it not matter for the speed of header compilation? Maciej
