Worst ideas/features in programming languages?

[glis-glis]

On Monday, 11 October 2021 at 15:59:10 UTC, Atila Neves wrote:
> * Worst features implemented in a non-toy language

Python: Assign operator meaning different things in different 
context
`x = 3`
Can mean "create a new variable x with value 3" or "assign the 
value 3 to variable x". This can hit you both ways, I had bugs 
because I misspelled a variable and created a new variable 
instead of assigning a new value to an existing one, and I 
inadvertently changed the value of an existing variable instead 
of creating a new one. Because of this, I am also very skeptical 
of Rust's "variable shadowing" feature.

Python passing by reference unless it doesn't:
`i=1; j=i; j+=2 `
-> i = 1, j=3

`li=[1]; lj=li; lj += [2]`
-> li = [1,2], lj = [1,2]


> * Worst features (in your opinion) in D
- char[] pretends to be an array but is actually more like a 
linked list
- lots of attributes and keywords

> * Features you'd like to see in D
- Cleaning up the attributes
- Making the language simpler, not more complicated

Concerning the "or" vs "||" discussion, as a non-native English 
speaker, I learned programming as a teenager with barely any 
English knowledge, and was attracted to the C/C++ syntax as it 
depends less on English compared to Pascal's syntax.

An English-agnostic programming language would be nice to help 
non-native English speakers to get into programming more easily, 
but how would you replace keywords like "if", "while" or "for"?