[wmoxam]

But it can (and should be) fixed. It's not that difficult.

Choose a convention (ie: always $haystack before $needle), find the methods that don't conform, and print deprecation messages for them, add their replacements.

Then in the next major release, remove the deprecated methods. Hell, you could even put the deprecations in in a module so that those who can't/won't update their code won't have to be left behind.

It may be impossible to write a good language from the start, but that shouldn't deter from fixing those mistakes.