On 22/07/15 19:20, Paul van Helden wrote:
I have never managed to understand why "declare before use" is so important
to Pascal. I get the bit about strong typing and doing everything possible
to eliminate errors at compile time, but I still don't get why. If this is
central to what makes something "Pascal", I would love to be pointed to a
good explanation. I'm not trying to be a pain here. I've been programming
in Pascal, full time, for most of my life. It has always puzzled me why
everything has to be declared first.
Consider the following code:
procedure Test;
var i : integer;
begin
for J := 1 to 25 do
writeln;
end;
With "Declare before use", this is plainly incorrect. J has not been
declared; You can't type; You are an idiot!
In your world, it may be an error (see above), it may be a warning; I has
been declared and not used. You may have warnings switched off and never
even see it!
I like my compilers to find as many errors in my code as possible
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