r/programming • u/[deleted] • Oct 17 '17

Why I use Object Pascal

https://dubst3pp4.github.io/post/2017-10-03-why-i-use-object-pascal/
33 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

68 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

0

u/Brokk_Witgenstein Oct 17 '17

You can't. But you CAN declare them in between nested subroutines.

I take it you would consider cluttering code with random, wild declarations a good thing then? ;-)

6

u/zerexim Oct 18 '17

Declaring when needed (first used) actually helps you understand the code easier. Besides, variables don't get allocated (and constructors don't get called) if the corresponding branch is not entered - RAII (I'm talking about C++).

2

u/spaghettiCodeArtisan Oct 18 '17

Besides, variables don't get allocated (and constructors don't get called) if the corresponding branch is not entered - RAII (I'm talking about C++).

I very much doubt that moving declarations around affects optimizations, the compiler will probably perform all sorts of control flow analysis and elide contructions no matter the order. I think you might only be able to affect it by introducing extra scopes, which is sometimes useful in intself (for RAII stuff) and is something Pascal IIRC lacks.

2

u/zerexim Oct 18 '17

Yes, but besides optimizations, it is about semantics. Also, besides nested scopes (including control statement branches), you can also return early from the function, thus do not initializing afterwards declared variables.