> Like engineers in that community look down on not using the latest features?
Yes. Engineers use the latest features heavily to demonstrate that their skills are current.
One of the worst such features is "var". Some tools even flag your code for not using var when you could. Inappropriate use of "var" makes code harder to read (and even MS documentation says this) and makes code slightly less reliable too.
You are right, SomeMethod().Fire() has the problem too. But typically you write
Employee e = SomeMethod();
e.Fire();
This does NOT have the same problem as var. When you use var you reduce the opportunities for the compiler to catch your bug. So the best practice is to explicitly state the type when possible. It makes the code more readable too.
Microsoft recommendation is reasonable. I don't think var should be used as much Rider recommends. But var is perfectly fine in itself. The problem you illustrated occurs independently from var. You assert that one "typically" writes code a certain way but I've seen plenty of both. Further, sometimes you need var. Sometimes the target type can't be spelled like with anonymous types.
Sorry for being unclear. Var is perfectly fine in many cases. Sometimes there are better tools. Screwdrivers are fine tools but they are not appropriate for driving nails.
from your sibling comment:
> "var" also makes your code less reliable as seen in this example
I disagree with this too, I think your example is a classic case of preprocessor directives making it difficult to know what your code is doing because the build system is going to conditionally change your code. Var or not, you can't even know what's being compiled just by looking at the file, and that's a larger problem than the use of var
Use of preprocessor in the example is incidental. The problem with var is that you're not completely stating your intent, leaving it to the compiler to infer your intent. This can lead to trouble in some cases.
I have seen code that sorts numbers as strings, because nowhere in the code was the intent stated that the array is supposed to hold numbers. As a result, if the programmer forgot to convert strings to integers at input time, the bug is never caught.
Yes. Engineers use the latest features heavily to demonstrate that their skills are current.
One of the worst such features is "var". Some tools even flag your code for not using var when you could. Inappropriate use of "var" makes code harder to read (and even MS documentation says this) and makes code slightly less reliable too.