Thread: Critique my code?

Originally Posted by Mastadex

The reason I say this is that I avoid using global variables because there are ways of storing things that make golbal variables obsolete.

I disagree.

Originally Posted by Mastadex

for example, if you use malloc/new to dynamically allocate memory, and then pass around a pointer, that would give you the same result, but agian its quite limited.

True, it could give you the same result, but that is not always the issue at hand. Did you know that every time you create a function that takes in more than 3 parameters, the function call is slower and takes more time, but if there are 3 or less parameters, it can be highly optimized? Often times in game development, there are SEVERAL variables from all across the game that need to be used in one function, and passing them in all in with pointers just simply isnt logical, reasonable, or efficient. Globals do the job.

Originally Posted by Mastadex

If your going to call a function over and over agian and you need to keep a variable form going out of scope, you can always try making a variable inside the function static.

True, that can be done as long as the variable is needed in that scope only.

Now, I am not trying to say: Use globals!! Globals rock!!! Use them freely!!!

I would never say such a thing as that, because it would be stupid to do such a thing, but I think advanced programmers should know that globals are okay sometimes, and not to be afraid of using them. They are not bad things at all. Beginners should not use them just because they need to learn good programming practice.

>True, that can be done as long as the variable is needed in that scope only.
And you don't care about the function being re-entrant.

How do you mean using global/local static variables decide whether a function is reentrant or not?

>How do you mean using global/local static variables decide whether a function is reentrant or not?
I mean using local static variables often makes a function non-reentrant because they're most often used to save state between calls, like strtok.

I agree, I thought you meant 'as opposed to global variables' because that was the context.

> Did you know that every time you create a function that takes in more than 3 parameters,
A nice x86-centric view of the world there.
The minute cost of a function call is a poor excuse for making everything global.

> Often times in game development,...
If they're that common, why aren't they all in the same structure which can be passed as a single pointer?