"like C with an object model"? C++ was born of people doing ad-hoc OO with
C. Did all those people move to C++ or even stay there? A lot more is known
today about object models than when C++ was born. Lucky for C, it does not
(yet?) define an object model. Or, giving C an object model may be a like
putting lipstick on a pig.
C was designed as a procedural language.
It's great for writing procedural code.
If OO is wanted, then it is better to start with something designed
for it from the start.
The alternative (C transmongrified into OO) is C++, which is actually
pretty good for OO stuff. Or Objective C. I doubt if a new effort
will do better than those.
Otherwise, we are trying to make a freight train fly. You might be
able to get it to work, but it's better suited for hauling heavy loads
along some tracks.
Most OO languages turn into gigantic piles of floating slop over
time. Look at Java. I think I can safely say that no single person
on earth knows the Java language if we consider the language as a
whole (including JDBC, SWT, AWT, Ant, the whole org.* pile, struts,
spring, etc...)
I have 13785 File(s) comprising 6,881,397,055 bytes in *one* of my
jars folders.
Now, I like big, massive C++. I don't want to give up templates or
BOOST or any of the nifty features. But I would hate it if C
transmongrified into another OO language and left it's old, simple
procedure model behind.
I am pretty sure I would stop programing in C {at least the new
flavor}, just because I don't want to learn another big, unweildy
language. (Don't get me wrong -- big and unweildy can be nice -- but
we have Java and C++ and .NET, etc. already).
The thing I like most about C is I know it through and through. And
the standard is small enough that one person can become proficient in
the language in a relatively short period of time.
It takes a long time to learn an OO language, and even then they tend
to move faster than I can keep up.