> Shouldn't we turn on warnings by the compiler on uninitialized > variables? This can also be helpful. Those warnings should already be enabled, at least with GCC.
Yes, the compiler can detect unitialized variables,
But, that introduces a new problem. There are a lot of tools out there (like GCC) that can find unitialized variables (or more specifically, variables which are used before initialization). I've seen too many less-scarred developers add an " = NULL" to quiet down the tool. But that's (arguably) worse than leaving the variable uninitialized - if you simply initialize a variable to a known (but not correct) value, you've disabled the tool; it can't help you find improperly initialized variables anymore. The variable has a value, but you still don't know at which point in time it has a correct value.
That's another reason I prefer initializers (and nested variable declarations) - I can put off creating the variable until I can assign a meaningful value to it. (I don't go so far as to introduce artificial scopes just for the sake of nesting variable declarations).
Too many scars...
-- Korry
