> It just doesn't feel like the right one for the task.
> if it had some actual data structures and operations on those, rather than just arithmetic on a few stack-allocated scalar values
I fully agree, as long as the variables are on the stack and not the part of some structure not much can be done, a good compiler can even just keep them in the registers and inline the functions and remove the dead code. As soon as I'd be allowed to make my own classes and "use C++ features", I know what I'd do, as in my other comment.
> if it had some actual data structures and operations on those, rather than just arithmetic on a few stack-allocated scalar values
I fully agree, as long as the variables are on the stack and not the part of some structure not much can be done, a good compiler can even just keep them in the registers and inline the functions and remove the dead code. As soon as I'd be allowed to make my own classes and "use C++ features", I know what I'd do, as in my other comment.