What's C's biggest mistake?

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Don wrote:
>> Well, if you ask the question "what's C++'s biggest mistake?" it's 
>> much more difficult. C++'s failure to specify the ABI is enough of a 
>> reason to use C instead, I reckon. It think it's an appalling, 
>> inexcusable mistake -- it guaranteed compiled libraries 20 years later 
>> would use extern(C), not extern(C++). And that's not the worst C++ 
>> mistake.
> 
> I'd be hard pressed to come up with C++'s biggest mistake. Perhaps it 
> was failing to address the array => pointer conversion.

That's partially addressed by the ability to define somewhat 
encapsulated types like std::vector. Don's suggested lack of ABI is big, 
and unfortunately not addressed in C++0x. There are many smaller ones to 
follow... two that come to mind: using "<"/">" for grouping and 
argument-dependent lookup.

Happy New Year in 2010! Let's make it a great year for D.


Andrei