On Exit question

[TerryRitchie]

But the point I was trying to make, is that there are number of control variables ( ie For x = 1 to 10, or For i = ?? to ??), these control variables I don't think are usually Dimensioned and a program can have a ton of them. Option _Explicit seems to force you to Dimension them.

Yes, it does, and that's the point. BASIC, and by extension QB64, allows the creation of variables "out of the blue" and is one of the main reasons professionals in the IT field say programmers that grew up using BASIC have many bad habits and label BASIC as a language to avoid. I don't agree with their thinking since BASIC was designed this way on purpose and creating variables like this is just fine for BASIC.

However, I think you'll find that declaring every variable, even those control variables, will make your code much cleaner and easier to read and debug in the long run, not only for others, but especially for you. Besides the benefits I've already pointed out by declaring variables with DIM and STATIC, there is another one. You need to think about the control variables beforehand and name them. I would much rather see this:

DIM column AS INTEGER ' text columns on an 80x25 screen
DIM row AS INTEGER      ' text rows on an 80x25 screen

FOR column = 1 TO 80
    FOR row = 1 TO 25
        .... <code>
    NEXT row
NEXT column

than this:

FOR i = 1 TO 80
    FOR j = 1 TO 25
        .... <code>
    NEXT j
NEXT i

The first example control variables are not only documented but self-document as well.

If you decide to start dabbling with another language it more more than likely require declared variables. BASIC does form a bad habit in this sense.