When is it appropriate to use C as object oriented language?

Question

There are a lot of excellent answers how can one simulate object oriented concepts with C. To name a few:

• C double linked list with abstract data type
• C as an object oriented language
• Can you write object-oriented code in C?

When is it appropriate to use such simulation and not to use languages that support object-oriented techniques natively?

Highly related:

• Why artificially limit your code to C?
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/482574/whats-the-advantage-of-using-c-over-c-or-is-there-one

Answer 1

I'll give you the one reason I know of because it has been the case for me:

When you are developing software for a unique platform, and the only available compiler is a C compiler. This happens quite often in the world of embedded microcontrollers.

Answer 2

To just give you another example: a fair amount of the x86 Linux kernel is using C as if it were C++, when object-orientation seems natural (eg, in the VFS). The kernel is written in assembly and C (if that wasn't changed in the 3.0 kernel). The kernel coders create macros and structures, sometimes even named similar to C++ terms (eg, for_each_xxx), that allow them to code as-if. As others have pointed out, you'd never choose C if you start a heavily object-oriented program; but when you're adjusting C based code to add object-oriented features, you might.