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Guideline RP6: Do not hardcode repetitive entities
Do not enumerate a list in statements (and other typographical atrocities). If you have a list of 63 cities, for example, and you wish to initialize an array, one approach would be to set the first element to "tallahassee", the second to "denver", and so forth, as shown in the example below. The problem with this approach is maintenance. If you need to insert "boise" after "denver", then you have to renumber all the entries from "denver" to the end of the list. Let the compiler (or interpreter) help you whenever it can. Just create an array, language permitting, and give it the list with which to initialize. The language will then do the assignments; you do not have to. So adding a name in the middle is as simple as editing the list in place.
Sharp eyes will further note that the explicit manual assignments vs. the array initializer are not equivalent -- the former starts the indexing from 1, the latter, from 0, which is generally better form.
$cityName[1] = "tallahassee"; $cityName[2] = "denver"; $cityName[3] = "chicago"; $cityName[4] = "san jose"; $cityName[5] = "san francisco"; $cityName[6] = "pittsburgh"; ...
@cityName = ( "tallahassee", "denver", "chicago", "san jose", "san francisco", "pittsburgh", ... );
