--- title: 5 Bad C++ habits. Avoid them please! | daily.dev description: A C++ developer with 10 years of game dev experience outlines 5 common bad habits: not initializing variables in constructors (use in-class member initializers... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/5-bad-c-habits-avoid-them-please--z1w5xuw5u twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: 5 Bad C++ habits. Avoid them please! | daily.dev og:description: A C++ developer with 10 years of game dev experience outlines 5 common bad habits: not initializing variables in constructors (use in-class member initializers... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/5-bad-c-habits-avoid-them-please--z1w5xuw5u og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/z1w5xUW5u.png og:image:alt: 5 Bad C++ habits. Avoid them please! og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # 5 Bad C++ habits. Avoid them please! **[Low Level Game Dev](https://daily.dev/sources/lowlevelgamedev)** · 9 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A C++ developer with 10 years of game dev experience outlines 5 common bad habits: not initializing variables in constructors (use in-class member initializers instead), declaring all variables at the top of functions (a legacy C practice), unnecessarily allocating objects on the heap, writing code that makes misuse easy (e.g., accepting raw pointers instead of references), and neglecting to build large projects in favor of passive learning. Each habit is illustrated with concrete code examples, and the post ends with a plug for a C++ game development course. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: --- Tags: [#game-development](https://daily.dev/tags/game-development), [#c++](https://daily.dev/tags/c++) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/5-bad-c-habits-avoid-them-please--z1w5xuw5u) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"5 Bad C++ habits. 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