> A gigantic advantage: a single-pass-compilable language is simpler. By definition.
That's only "by definition" if you take a language that needs multiple passes, then remove the features that need multiple passes, and don't replace them with anything else to compensate.
The "by definition simpler" version of C would not only disallow forward references, it would have no forward declarations either. As-is, forward declarations add some complexity of their own.
(Also, if you can figure out a way to emit jump instructions in a single pass, you can probably figure out a way to call unknown functions in a single pass.)
That's only "by definition" if you take a language that needs multiple passes, then remove the features that need multiple passes, and don't replace them with anything else to compensate.
The "by definition simpler" version of C would not only disallow forward references, it would have no forward declarations either. As-is, forward declarations add some complexity of their own.
(Also, if you can figure out a way to emit jump instructions in a single pass, you can probably figure out a way to call unknown functions in a single pass.)