Regarding team/environment:

If the OP's team is exposed / used to C-style programs where initialization must be done or BadStuffHappens(TM), then I'd go for the explicit initialization in order to reduce mental context switching.

If the OP's team is used to Perl or similar languages then I'd go for brevity and skip the explicit initalization since it leads to shorter code. ('short' as in 'as short as necessary', not as in 'as short as possible')

Or one could argue that you (generic you) should always go for a perlish mindset and remove anything non-perlish. Pick an option that's suitable to you and your team and apply it consistently - TMTOWTDI...

In reply to Re^2: Is there a difference in this declaration? by Monk::Thomas
in thread Is there a difference in this declaration? by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.