I took an over-simplified Linux approach, so my experience probably isn't characteristic of the C user base as a whole. I'm also the sort to do my programming in a text editor (bonus points if it does syntax highlighting), so I can't speak for how much of an issue it is to get Playdate set up with an IDE. I just did what Inside Playdate with C suggested: point PLAYDATE_SDK_PATH to the devkit and use make starting with one of the example projects. It spits out a .pdx that, near as I can tell, runs in the simulator on any OS. It certainly runs on the hardware.
That all being said, I feel like the C audience is treated somewhat as second-class citizens:
- Not counting language differences, the Lua API still gets features that the C API doesn't. (Example, example)
- Inside Playdate with C is terse and has a more truncated flow than Inside Playdate.
- Common situations in C are met with unintuitive error messages that amount to Not Supported™, and which are not mentioned in the documentation. (Example, example)
I don't get the impression the Playdate team are trying to ignore the C side of things, but it's clear that their focus is on Lua. I attempted to reach out and offer to help with revisions to Inside Playdate with C to be more accommodating in various regards, but haven't heard back about that. The offer totally still stands, though.