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Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 21:31:41 +1000
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199705191131.VAA13078@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, j@uriah.heep.sax.de
Subject: Re: Variable initialization
Cc: core@FreeBSD.ORG
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>> Can someone tell me why this is called obfuscation ?

With old compilers, it was a pessimization to initalize variables
unnecessarily or long before they are used.  With modern compilers,
it defeats automatic checking for uninitialized variables and may
still prevent some optimizations.  A wrongly initialized variable
is worse than an initialized one since it can't be checked for.

>I've cc'ed the core team: we should IMHO make this sentence in
>style(9) less strict.  My English ain't good enough for a better
>formulation...

We already made it less strict.  It is the one thing in the Lite2
/usr/src/admin/style that someone felt strongly enough about to
say "DO NOT" do this.

Bruce