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A long time ago, my college professor defined a term which meant the number of source lines between a variable definition and its usage.
The lesson basically argued that the closer the two values are, the easier it will be to maintain over the long run.
My Google-Fu has been weak.
What is the term that describes this relationship?
I came across this concept for the first time whilst reading Code Complete 2.
I think the term you’re looking for is ‘span’ in that book, which is explicitly the number of lines between references to a variable. In my interpretation, a variable declared and used on consecutive lines would have a span of 0.
The concept is reusable for other references to the variable too to give a wider measure of maintainability – the span between declaration and first use may be 0, but if the variable is then used again 100 lines later that’s still pretty nasty.