Not sure that scoping to the block + unconditionally doing the initialization actually helps readability, though I do think doing one or the other would. Also

Not sure that scoping to the block + unconditionally doing the initialization actually helps readability, though I do think doing one or the other would. Also the original is super efficient which is pretty cool, and (at least when correct) is arguably more readable (probably not so much re. extendable) since it seems like there's no way to look at the code and think you know what it's doing when you actually do not.