Real programmers can write assembly code in any language.
I'm a great believer in visual distinctions.
The way I see it, if you declare something portable, you'll always be wrong, and if you declare it non-portable, you'll always be right.
It's there as a sop to former Ada programmers.
The choice of approaches could be made the responsibility of the programmer.
I'm just paid to do whatever I want to do. Some of the time it's development, and some of the time it's just goofing off.