The OSHS source code looks much simplier

Have you ever tried to look into source code of some of the free software? The high level things look simply and straightforward and the ideas behind the code are clearly visible. But diving deeper into the implementation of the ideas suddenly mess appears. At some point you disgustedly give up saying that the ideas are nice but implementation is terrible.

Whats the matter? One thing is so-called portability pollution. But even if the portability polution is nonpresent because the package is simply nonportable or portability issues were moved into separate modules and "firewalled" from the rest of code by a clearly defined interface, there is another kind of pollution: optional features. The same torture of "#ifdef & company" is used to make a feature of a software package optional.

The last thing that fogs the ideas is internationalization provisions. Since "C" language does not support internationalization directly, strange provisions are to be used. One of the most elegant ones I ever seen is 'GNU gettext' internationalization package. However although it is elegant, it still somewhat confuses newbies reading the sources.

The OSHS solves these issues by extending the language so it directly supports both, optional features and internationalization. The result is much more readable and straightforward syntax that does not fog anything anymore. Also performance is better because compiler knows the semantics of the code and can choose better ways how to compile a particular piece of code.