Once More In Defense Of The var Keyword

Even today there are those of you who doubt the power of the var keyword in C#! Or rather, there are those of you who steadfastly refuse to use it.

I think the var keyword provides a nice symmetry for local variable declarations. No one variable appears more important than another just because it has a type name with more capital letters.

var newPatient = new Patient();
var surgicalProcedure = Procedures.Rhinoplasty;
var lengthOfStay = TimeSpan.FromDays(2);

We can also talk about readability, type inference - blah blah blah. But, I think the following generalization is the real benefit of the var keyword.

Developers who use the var keyword tend to take greater care in naming their variables.

I think the carefulness is a natural reaction to the lack of type information.  I've seen quite a bit of code like this:

Procedure proc = Procedures.Rhinoplasty;

But, rarely do I see abbreviations and shortcuts with var.

var surgicalProcedure = Procedures.Rhinoplasty;

If you are still wary of var, give it a try for the day. I think your variable names will thank you.