Question

I tend to use the words define, declare and assign interchangeably but this seems to cause offense to some people. Is this justified? Should I only use the word declare for the first time I assign to a variable? Or is there more to it than that?

Answer 1

Define and declare are similar but assign is very different.

Here I am declaring (or defining) a variable:

int x; 

Here I am assigning a value to that variable:

x = 0; 

Here I am doing both in one statement:

int x = 0; 

Note

Not all languages support declaration and assignment in one statement:

T-SQL

declare x int; set x = 0; 

Some languages require that you assign a value to a variable upon declaration. This requirement allows the compiler or interpreter of the language to infer a type for the variable:

Python

x = 0