I have been told to always use strict and warnings but I dont.

Definitely do. You're just asking for nasty debugging problems if you don't .. in general, no reason not to--actually the opposite because it will save time by pointing out problems and potential problems to you. Try adding it to this program and see what pops..

Pre-declaring at the top.

Take a look at the thread coding rules, and in particular merlyn's reply Re: coding rules