> The best C programming trick is to use no tricks.

The very notion of there being tricks and that knowing them makes you better is something I hate about C and C++. Most tricks I read here are bandaids over usability issues the languages have. Yes, they alleviate an issue but may introduce unexpected consequences and distance your dialect from the rest of the community.

I am so very thankful that C and C++ are no longer the only options for low level, non garbage collected programming.

E.g. this is 'named, optional arguments East Egg' is a useful trick which also improves readability:

    my_func((my_struct) { .bla = 1, .blub = 2, });

    typedef struct pixel {
        int r;
        int g;
        int b;
    } pixel_t;

    #define PIXEL(red, green, blue) \
    (pixel_t)                       \
    {                               \
      .r = (red),                   \
      .g = (green),                 \
      .b = (blue)
    }

    void display_pixel(pixel_t pixel);

    display_pixel(PIXEL(255, 255, 255));

    return PIXEL(255, 255, 255);

    display_pixel((pixel_t) {.r = 255, .g = 255, .b = 255});

The compatibility with the C library is up to C11 for example.

Google even sponsored a massive effort to clean the Linux kernel of their use.

A subset of designated initializers is supported in C++20.

It's interesting that the other C descendant Objective-C has decided to "respect" its C subset instead of messing with it, with the result that new C standards are automatically supported in ObjC.

VLAs are dead, a broken design fixed in C11 by removing it from the standard, no idea why everyone keeps referring to them.

Took them only 21 years... And this standard being so recent, most projects won't have that for years to come.

https://godbolt.org/z/GW59rM

In your example,

    Point point = {.z = 2.0, .x = 1.0};