Lets not forget that the motivations for Alef, and Limbo, from the C authors themselves, were also to improve language safety.

In Inferno, only the kernel, DisVM (+ JIT), and a few drivers are still C, everything else in userspace is Limbo.

> Limbo is the application programming language for the Inferno operating system. Although Limbo looks syntactically like C, it has a number of features that make it easier to use, safer, and more suited to the heterogeneous, networked Inferno environment: a rich set of basic types, strong typing, garbage collection, concurrency, communications, and modules. Limbo may be interpreted or compiled ‘just in time’ for efficient, portable execution.

https://doc.cat-v.org/inferno/4th_edition/inferno_OS

And even if the design isn't the best in the world, it was then followed by Go, it was not what Google is doing in C++ should be redone in C.

https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-is-exponenti...