alt Hacker News"bug" can refer to many categories of problems, including logic errors. I've certainly seen uninitialized variables be a source of bugs. Stackoverflow for example is full of discussions about debugging problems caused by uninitialized variables, and the word "bug" is very often used in those contexts.
What do you mean it is not a source of bugs?
Replies
I mean that bug is *not in* uninitialized variable - bug in program logic. E.g. one of code pathes don't initialize variable.
So, I see uninitialized variables as a good way to find such logic errors. And, therefore, advice to always initialize variable - bad practice.
Of course if you already have a good value to initialize variable - do it. But if you have no - better leave it uninitialized.
Moreover - this will not cause safety issues in production builds because you can use `-ftrivial-auto-var-init` to initialize automatic variables to e.g. zeroes (`-fhardened` will do this too)
> What do you mean it is not a source of bugs?
I think what they mean, and what I also think is that the bug does not come from the existence of uninitialized variables. It comes from the USE of uninitialized variables. Making the variables initialized does not make the bug go away, at most it silences it. Making the program invalid instead (which is what UB fundamentally is) is way more helpful for making programs have less bugs. That the compiler still emits a program is a defect, although an unfixable one.
As to my knowledge C (and derivatives like C++) is the only common language where the question "Is this a program?" has false positives. It is certainly an interesting choice.