Are DefType statments considered Bad Practice?

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+2 Q:

Are DefType statments considered Bad Practice?

I want your thoughts on why or (why not) this statement should (or should not) be used.

Since this is a little subjective, here is my criteria: Upvotes given for concrete reasons (as opposed to unreasoned opinion). Final answer accepted will be the most comprehensive answer.

+5 A:

In a well-crafted program, Defxxx statements are pointless, because all variables and functions will be explicitly typed.

Except for one case: DefObj A-Z, in conjunction with Option Explicit, makes it (practically) impossible for any untyped or undeclared variable, function, or member to exist in your code, and makes anything that would wind up as a Variant stand out in sharp relief.

DefObj A-Z is the suspenders to Option Explicit's belt.

Jim Mack 2009-12-15 03:47:29

+1 Neat trick:)

Oorang 2009-12-15 04:27:57

Side note: In my boredom, I said unto myself "Yea, I shall commit a most grievous coding party foul and us Extended ASCII variables to defeat this new trick." But guess what? Even though A-Y only covers A through Y A-Z actually covers *everything* extended ASCII included.

Oorang 2009-12-15 04:44:59

+1 Clever trick. Took the liberty of editing the answer to add some links to the VB6 reference manual. Usually I disapprove of DefType, Option Compare, etc because you have to look at the top of the module before you know what code is doing. But this is good.

MarkJ 2009-12-15 10:41:08

You know, I was playing around with Option Compare last night, and I did find one interesting thing. If you need to sort or compare case-insensitively, Option Compare Text blows StrComp and LCase$ out of the water. By a lot. I hate to alter an entire module's compare method, but for certain heavy duty applications this could be a gain worth taking advantage of.

Oorang 2009-12-15 16:40:48

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Are DefType statments considered Bad Practice?

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