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  3. Does not Developers get confused if there are too many global variables?

Does not Developers get confused if there are too many global variables?

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  • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

    The only part of that about which we disagree is the punishment involved. You prefer "slap"; I prefer "baseball bat". I thought it was stupid when they introduced var, while accepting the need when using LINQ. I have yet to see a convincing argument for the very existence of dynamic (and yes, I do Office interop occasionally, and no, I don't use dynamic for it)

    The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)

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    Vark111
    wrote on last edited by
    #20

    Quote:

    I have yet to see a convincing argument for the very existence of dynamic

    I've used it when dealing heavily with JSON data.

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    • M Mohammed Hameed

      It has been noticed that some developers heavily use Global variables, may be without any discomfort. Is it like they get accustomed to it and hence use it? Dont they get confused by over usage?

      Understand SOLID! Believe SOLID! Try SOLID; your Code becomes Rock SOLID!!!

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      Valery Possoz
      wrote on last edited by
      #21

      I once worked on a project with over 3000 global variables. The "team leader" did not even know what half of them were suppose to be for... He just use to add new ones!! I let you guess the quality of the project! So yes they get confused... :(

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      • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

        The only part of that about which we disagree is the punishment involved. You prefer "slap"; I prefer "baseball bat". I thought it was stupid when they introduced var, while accepting the need when using LINQ. I have yet to see a convincing argument for the very existence of dynamic (and yes, I do Office interop occasionally, and no, I don't use dynamic for it)

        The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)

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        Rob Philpott
        wrote on last edited by
        #22

        OriginalGriff wrote:

        The only part of that about which we disagree is the punishment involved.

        Actually I find it often just best to kill them. Does wonders to calm the nerves.

        Regards, Rob Philpott.

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        • L Lost User

          This may be a stupid question, but that is the way I learn: Is there an "official" guide to the proper use of global variables, like a Microsoft guidelines document or something?

          Cornelius Henning ---------------------------------------------- "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society Convention, 1977

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          CMullikin
          wrote on last edited by
          #23

          You're supposed to try to reduce the number of global variables that you use and only use them when necessary. The second paragraph on Wikipedia[^] gives pretty good reasons for this.

          The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin

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          • B BobJanova

            Well, hamsters' brains aren't that big ... it's cruel enough making them write JavaScript without expecting good JavaScript.

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            Chris Maunder
            wrote on last edited by
            #24

            I will put my hand up and say loudly and with some shame: Our Javascript sucks

            cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

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            • K Keith Barrow

              I was overused once, it did cause discomfort, but I was never confused!

              “Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed”
              “One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated”

              Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535)

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              Chris Maunder
              wrote on last edited by
              #25

              You lucky, lucky bastard. (bonus points if you name that movie)

              cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

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              • V Vark111

                I doubt you'll see a lot of lazy devs overusing dynamic, because it takes away Intellisense, and most of those types rely on Intellisense.

                OriginalGriffO Offline
                OriginalGriffO Offline
                OriginalGriff
                wrote on last edited by
                #26

                Most of 'em don't bother with AnySense! :laugh:

                The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)

                "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
                "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

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                • C Chris Maunder

                  Mohammed Hameed wrote:

                  Is it like they get accustomed to it and hence use it?

                  Or they simply don't understand how to write object oriented and/or well architected code.

                  cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

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                  Mohammed Hameed
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #27

                  Thanks Chris. Yes, that would be the case.

                  Understand SOLID! Believe SOLID! Try SOLID; your Code becomes Rock SOLID!!!

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                  • L Lost User

                    This may be a stupid question, but that is the way I learn: Is there an "official" guide to the proper use of global variables, like a Microsoft guidelines document or something?

                    Cornelius Henning ---------------------------------------------- "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society Convention, 1977

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                    Mohammed Hameed
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #28

                    There is a nice discussion here on Cunningham's site http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GlobalVariablesAreBad

                    Understand SOLID! Believe SOLID! Try SOLID; your Code becomes Rock SOLID!!!

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                    • K Keith Barrow

                      I was overused once, it did cause discomfort, but I was never confused!

                      “Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed”
                      “One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated”

                      Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535)

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                      Mohammed Hameed
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #29

                      Thanks for your input. So its like discomfort for some and confusion for some developers.

                      Understand SOLID! Believe SOLID! Try SOLID; your Code becomes Rock SOLID!!!

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                      • B BobJanova

                        Global variables are widely recognised to be a Bad Thing and confusing. That's why programming languages have gradually introduced more and more ways of avoiding them: local variables, function parameters, structures (to wrap up multiple parameters where there would be a confusingly large number of them), encapsulation, closures ... I'm sure there are other features that essentially come down to reducing the scope within which a data object is visible to avoid confusion.

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                        Mohammed Hameed
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #30

                        Thanks Bob. Very good explanation. :thumbsup:

                        Understand SOLID! Believe SOLID! Try SOLID; your Code becomes Rock SOLID!!!

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                        • C Chris Maunder

                          You lucky, lucky bastard. (bonus points if you name that movie)

                          cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

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                          Mohammed Hameed
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #31

                          Life of Brian.

                          Understand SOLID! Believe SOLID! Try SOLID; your Code becomes Rock SOLID!!!

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                          • L Lost User

                            It would depend upon how the variables are named. Names like: jjxl, jixl, picxl, y, x, xy, yx, xxy would be confusing even locally scoped. However, names like: Global_Late_Fee, Global_Post_Date, & WTF_Adjustment aren't confusing.

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                            Mohammed Hameed
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #32

                            Yes, prefixing them may reduce much confusion. Thank you.

                            Understand SOLID! Believe SOLID! Try SOLID; your Code becomes Rock SOLID!!!

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                            • V Vark111

                              I doubt you'll see a lot of lazy devs overusing dynamic, because it takes away Intellisense, and most of those types rely on Intellisense.

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                              Mohammed Hameed
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #33

                              Agreed.

                              Understand SOLID! Believe SOLID! Try SOLID; your Code becomes Rock SOLID!!!

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                              • L Lost User

                                This may be a stupid question, but that is the way I learn: Is there an "official" guide to the proper use of global variables, like a Microsoft guidelines document or something?

                                Cornelius Henning ---------------------------------------------- "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society Convention, 1977

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                                Pablo Aliskevicius
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #34

                                Here it is:

                                1. Don't use global variables.
                                2. If you thing you have found a reason to use a global variable, you're wrong. Just don't.

                                Of course, synchronized singletons and read-only monostates are not 'real' global variables. Also, if you're writing C and you have a variable that allows access to a hardware device, it may be forgiven. JM2B,

                                Pablo. "Accident: An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws." (Ambrose Bierce, circa 1899).

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                                • B BobJanova

                                  Anyone who declares anything dynamic without a damn good reason should get a slap round the head. It's loose, lazy, unclear and slow. If you know the name of methods that you want to call on an object (which you need to to make dynamic more than just object), you know enough to have it implement an interface and dispatch calls through that.

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                                  Mohammed Hameed
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #35

                                  Superb...

                                  Understand SOLID! Believe SOLID! Try SOLID; your Code becomes Rock SOLID!!!

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                                  • M Mohammed Hameed

                                    Life of Brian.

                                    Understand SOLID! Believe SOLID! Try SOLID; your Code becomes Rock SOLID!!!

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                                    Forogar
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #36

                                    Ding! 10 points to Mr. Hameed!

                                    - I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.

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                                    • V Valery Possoz

                                      I once worked on a project with over 3000 global variables. The "team leader" did not even know what half of them were suppose to be for... He just use to add new ones!! I let you guess the quality of the project! So yes they get confused... :(

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                                      Mohammed Hameed
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #37

                                      Thanks for the real time scenario.

                                      Understand SOLID! Believe SOLID! Try SOLID; your Code becomes Rock SOLID!!!

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                                      • F Forogar

                                        Ding! 10 points to Mr. Hameed!

                                        - I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.

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                                        Mohammed Hameed
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #38

                                        Thanks :)

                                        Understand SOLID! Believe SOLID! Try SOLID; your Code becomes Rock SOLID!!!

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                                        • J Joe Woodbury

                                          It's less confusing that where the developer uses classes at an absurdly granular level and/or buys into the "a method should do only one thing" nonsense. Then there's the one person who uses "var" for every definition in their C# code. The solution is to write aesthetically pleasing code will with meaningful names. In the C++ world, using static properly is a big help. (One thing that cracks me up are devs who criticize global variables and then create a singleton class full of variables. Or, worse, dozens of singleton classes chock full of variables. Speaking of singletons, I recently worked on some code where the original developer had create a factory class that produced exactly one and only one instance. Yes, it was "object" oriented, but the code would have been cleaner and made a whole lot more sense had they just written it in C.)

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                                          Lost User
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #39

                                          Not that I am particularly defending the use of var, but I quite like it in the case of

                                          var foo = new SomeReallyQuiteSensibleButLongName();

                                          especially if there are a few of them (cuz they line up and look nice) You can see what the type is easily, so no harm done. When it is

                                          var foo = TheResultOfSomeFunctionWhoseNAmeDoesntReflectItsReturnType();

                                          it annoys me as I have to use intellisense to ind out what type it is. Especially annoying with something like

                                          var selectedCustomer = GetCustomerFromList();

                                          which, at first glance, I would guess at selectedCustomer being some kind of Customer object. Imagine my surprise when I find out it is a boolean! Yep - the function returns a boolean that determines whether the customer was selected from the list. Now this comes down to good naming - and I have yet to meet a developer that names consistently well (myself included)

                                          MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

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