"J-P. Rosen" <rosen@adalog.fr> wrote in message 
news:rr9m63$ufd$1@dont-email.me...
> Le 14/12/2020 à 19:53, Dmitry A. Kazakov a écrit :
>> I think Robert Dewar argued that variables must be declared in the
>> narrowest possible scope. Which would imply that at the beginning of
>> that scope you should know the value, because it would be the first use
>> of the variable.
>
> Not applicable if your variable is used in a loop:
>
>   V : Integer;
> begin
>   loop
>      Get (V);
>      exit when V =0;
>      -- do something with V
>   end loop;
>
> Clearly, initializing V makes no sense.

Saying that you *meant* to have an uninitialized value does make sense, 
though:

     V : Integer := <>; -- Not Ada, but should be IMHO.

Whenever something is omitted, one never knows whether it was on purpose or 
a mistake. You get similar issues when "else" is omitted (RR's style guide 
only allows that in very specific circumstances). It's unfortunate that Ada 
doesn't have a positive way to indicate default initialization, outside of 
aggregates.

                        Randy.