Question

Resharper just prompted me on this line of code:

private static bool shouldWriteToDatabase = false;

indicating that I should not say ” = false” because bools, apparently, default to false in C#. I’ve been programming in C# for over a year and a half and never knew that. I guess it just slipped through the cracks, but this leaves me wondering what’s good practice.

Do I work on the assumption that default values are understood by all? This would result in cleaner code, but invites ambiguity if another programmer isn’t aware of the default value.

Answer 1

Personally I think:

• It’s good to be explicit if your code relies on the intial value.
• If your code doesn’t rely on the initial value, omitting it would make more sense and clutter the code less.

However I don’t think Resharper can easily detect the difference between these two situations.