Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uunet!tcs!nujoizey!gwu
From: gwu@nujoizey.Berkeley.EDU (George Wu)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: C++ coding standards (Comment needed)
Keywords: standard,variables
Message-ID: <963@tcs.tcs.com>
Date: 15 Aug 90 22:29:01 GMT
References: <2161@runxtsa.runx.oz.au>
Sender: usenet@tcs.com
Reply-To: gwu@nujoizey.Berkeley.EDU (George Wu)
Lines: 50

In article <2161@runxtsa.runx.oz.au>, edward@runxtsa.runx.oz.au (Edward
Birch) writes:
|> A friend of mine works with a large organization where they have defined a
|> standard that "variables must be declared where first used".
|> 
|> I think that this is an absolutely insane standard . . .

     I must agree with you.  We have no such standard, and so I see all
kinds.  I find that the interspersed declarations really do cloud the issue.
And especially when you have multiple programmers working together, you MUST
take maintenance issues into consideration.  I find myself screaming when I
am debugging someone else's code, I want to find the declaration of a
variable, and I find myself forced to wade through the code.  This is made
worse by the fact that often the variables are defined somewhere in the
class hierarchy.  But I, of course, still have to parse all the damn code.
The only helpful points are that most people at least try to limit the
length of routines, and modern editors can do string searches.

     As for the practice of declaring variables inside a block, ie. within a
pair of curly braces, I used to do so to minimize the scope of the variable
and clearly designate the variable for use only under certain conditions.
For example, I might do something like:


	switch (fooCode) {
	case BAR:
		{
			char *ascii;

			// some complex mess ...
		}
	case BAZ:
		{
			char *ebcdic;
			// ...
		}
	}


     HOWEVER, I soon discovered that I was doing so because the bloody
routine was getting too large.  The excess size of the routine is what made
restricted scoping use advantageous.  The REAL solution was to break down
the routine into smaller routines.

						George

----
George J Wu                           | gwu@tcs.com or ucbcad!tcs!gwu
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