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Avoiding Global Variables

shurcool · 2012-03-30T17:38:45

I was under the impression that if one had a lot of freedom and time to write high quality C++ code and follow best practices, then one could avoid having global variables altogether. After all, global variables often feel like quick hacks in order to code something up quickly, rather than "take your time and do it properly", and when a project gets larger they get in the way. Often, you'll need to replace a single global class instance with a list of properly maintained objects. Anyway, if the general idea above is sort of true (that it's better code practice to avoid globals when possible, and it is possible to avoid them in all cases), what happens if... Suppose you have a list of a lot of items. And each of these items needs to have some sort of connection to the outside world, i.e. for example to the list itself. If you had a global variable, the problem would be solved trivially. But otherwise, would you have to specify that variable and add it to each instance of your item collection? struct MyCustomContainer { int Whatever; SomeGlobalClass * ConnectionToOutsideWorld; // This becomes a huge waste of memory because it's there in each instance, only to replace 1 global variable } std::vector<MyCustomContainer> LotsOfItems; Please offer some advice.

General and Gameplay Programming Programming

Started by shurcool March 19, 2012 06:20 PM

70 comments, last by Telastyn 12 years ago

Slavik81

360

March 30, 2012 05:29 PM

In C#? I can believe that in C++. The product I'm working on (239k lines C#) currently builds in 4m52s, unit tests (1699) take 4m29s (based on my last commit)

Ah. In C++, I'd expect a build of that sort to take maybe 5 to 10 times that long. Your perspective suddenly makes a lot more sense to me.

Telastyn

3,778

March 30, 2012 05:38 PM

[quote name='Telastyn' timestamp='1332788833' post='4925424']In C#? I can believe that in C++. The product I'm working on (239k lines C#) currently builds in 4m52s, unit tests (1699) take 4m29s (based on my last commit)

Ah. In C++, I'd expect a build of that sort to take maybe 5 to 10 times that long. Your perspective suddenly makes a lot more sense to me.
[/quote]

*nod* I had assumed as much, but should've spelled it out when I made my point.

-- Tangent Developer Journal - Delegates - Part 2

Avoiding Global Variables

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Avoiding Global Variables

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