The question is, why doesn't C make

    char* a, b;

apply the char* type to both? (That is, why didn't they design it that way?)

I assume there was some reason originally, but it's made everything a bit more confusing ever since for a lot of people. :/

Edit: Apparently it's so declaration mirrors use. Not a good enough reason IMO. But plenty of languages have warts and bad choices that get brought forth. I'm a Perl dev, so I speak from experience (even if I think it's not nearly as bad as most people make out).