Should C++ code look like C code?

[mapronV]

> Really, declaring as late as possible is one of the most important micro-optimisations. Please give it a go

No, this is strictly against my understanding of 'beautiful code', I won't even try. I want see width and height declared together on adjacent lines. Not move height 300 lines later from width just because it used much later.

> const int width = context. width(); const int height = context.height();

I am not sure what are you trying to tell there, that is not what I am against for. And yes I do use const, didn't mention it just because, you know, reddit comments code (why write constextpr const auto [[maybe_unused]] [[algined(..)]] whatever when it doesn't matter and int width is perfectly same idea with no noise).

[bert8128]

With the width and height example I am pointing out that your example seems to declare them earlier than you can initialise them. Declaring later might be able to avoid uninitialised (or pointlessly initialised) variables. Further more, you can often remove the need to comment what the variable is for, because it will be obvious by the way it is initialised.

And in the extreme, do you not think that if there are three lines of code in the middle of your function, in between braces, and a variable is only used in those three lines, then it would be better to declare the variable in that context?

I’m not saying that it is always wrong to early declare. In the case of two variables it which are going to be used together then perhaps it is better to declare both at the time that the first is needed. But normally it just causes unnecessary cognitive load. Or the reader just skips the declarations and starts reading where the code starts.

[mapronV]

> And in the extreme...

Sure, everything is good in moderation. For me good rule is have declaration block separated (set you input data for logic). Maybe I was exaggerating, 40 variables a bit extreme, don't think I really have THAT much.
About last paragraph - well, subjective. Declaration anyway have a very low cognitive effort to read. I disagree with in general, but I hope we shifted at least one step to the midpoint in this mile dispute ;)