They're both equally illegible to my eyes!

The first, for a couple reasons, but that's not relevant. My point was that I see no advantage or even plausible case for having declaration syntax be different from use syntax.

If C made us declare foo using the second format you gave, we'd still have to write, e.g., ((foo[12][3])())[7] in the code where we are actually trying to use foo.

Can you look at a declaration in the second format, and compare to where the variable is used, and see quickly if the usage is correct? With the current declaration format, it's easy--because declaration and usage use the same format.

Why would you write code like this?

The point is not that, but that as soon as you make slightly nontrivial declarations it is not readable in one pass.

Well, the K&R book talk about the complicated declarations, and recommend the use of the typedef command. Also, it contains a simple program called "dcl", analogous to what you linked.

If that's what you consider "slightly nontrivial", I never want to see what you would consider a difficult type declaration.

I'd volunteer some Haskell, but I am afraid that while complex, it doesn't have enough line noise in the type declarations.