181: pre-assign sizes to variables

[sbfnk]

Description

This PR closes #181.

It fixes the issue by assigning sizes to int first (where type conversion is permitted) and then brace-initialise.

If we agree on the solution I'll add a new news item.

Checklist

• My PR is based on a package issue and I have explicitly linked it.
• I have included the target issue or issues in the PR title in the for Issue(s) issue-numbers: PR title
• I have read the contribution guidelines.
• I have tested my changes locally.
• I have added or updated unit tests where necessary.
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[sbfnk]

alternative approach would be to pass these to the function as they're available as data anyway

[seabbs]

Nice. Do you think this makes the code easier or harder to parse? I think for me maybe it is a little harder like this but only a little

There is also some speed considerations (annoyingly touchstone is down) my assumption is that this approach would be slightly faster due to the reduction in repeated work.

I think with the latter considerations probably worth doing.

Also quite a few contributions now so I guess its aut time (wow).

alternative approach would be to pass these to the function as they're available as data anyway

I think we want to avoid this as the more you have to pass the harder these functions become to use for people in my view

[sbfnk]

Nice. Do you think this makes the code easier or harder to parse? I think for me maybe it is a little harder like this but only a little

I would agree with this, and that it's worth doing overall (especially as it won't work on my laptop with the latest version of cmdstan otherwise).

[sbfnk]

Also quite a few contributions now so I guess its aut time (wow).

Half a day of contributions - depends on where you want to set the bar really.

[seabbs]

Half a day of contributions - depends on where you want to set the bar really.

I want to set it very low

[seabbs]

Nice LGTM