It isn't a bug, it is a feature. C wasn't designed to abstract away the reality of pointers, which are the basic building blocks of assembly. If you don't like

It isn't a bug, it is a feature. C wasn't designed to abstract away the reality of pointers, which are the basic building blocks of assembly. If you don't like pointers, then don't use C. All programming languages have their time and place (even something like whitespace). The advantage of not abstracting pointers is that it makes low-level programming much easier. Instead of having to write your operating system kernel in assembly, you can write it in a portable language that is much easier to read!