&gt; It also notes that the equal sign before the initializer in a declaration was not present, so int x 1; would define x and initialize it with the value 1.<p>That isn&#x27;t so scary; the parenthesized version,<p><pre><code>    int x(1)
</code></pre>
is still seen all the time, in places like C++ constructor member initializers. It&#x27;s how you actually declaratively initialize a type with that value, rather than initializing the memory with a default constructor and then getting the assignment operator called on the resulting object.<p>The real issue is that the parentheses in the above used to just be part of the expression, rather than required, so<p><pre><code>    int x 1
</code></pre>
would have worked just as well. I&#x27;m fairly certain I&#x27;m glad of the change, but the previous state of affairs wasn&#x27;t <i>crazy</i>.