From: tkoenig@netcologne.de   
      
   Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> schrieb:   
      
   > The "Variables at the top" meme may be something coming from Pascal.   
   > IIRC, in Pascal, compound statements aren't full blocks; they cannot   
   > have VAR declarations.   
      
   FORTRAN has had declaration statements (first version, DIMENSION   
   only) at the top of procedures since the beginning.  Algol 58   
   aka IAL had declarations everywere, while Algol 60 allowed them   
   only at the beginning of blocks.   
      
   > When programmers abandoned Pascal in the 1980s, they carried over this   
   > habit into C.   
      
   Probably, C just carried it over from the Algol tradition.   
      
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