I thought I bookmarked a post on C++ best practices but I cannot seem to find it.
The title was something like, "10 things you should not do in C++", or something along those lines.
One recommendation was to not declare variables at the top of a function, but only when they are first needed.
Another was not adding parameters to constructors, but instead using inline initialization.
Can anyone point me to that post? Thanks.
If you look for more in depth details about C++ best practices, I recommand the book "Effective C++" by Scott Meyers.
Could this link be the one you are referring to?
BTW, Bjarne Stroustrup (the creator of C++) also co-wrote a fantastic standards document with some folks at Lockheed Martin for the Joint Strike Fighter project. Regardless of what one thinks of military hardware, this document has a wealth of great "best practices" suggestions.
It can be found as a pdf at Bjarne's website.
Check out "Coding Standards" by Sutter and Alexandrescu in addition to the Effective C++ recommendations.
IMHO, variables declaration is not only c++ specific recommendation, so probably you should familiarize with Code Complete by Steve McConnell. It contains a lot of language independent coding guidelines.