It shall be possible to declare constants of any type. Such constants shall include both those whose values-are determined during translation and those whose value cannot be determined until allocation. Programs may not assign to constants.
Each variable must be declared explicitly. Variables may be of any type. The type of each variable must be specified as part of its declaration and must be determinable during translation. [Note, “variable” throughout this document refers not only to simple variables but also to composite variables and to components of arrays and records.]
Everything (including operators) declared in a program shall have a scope (i.e., a portion of the program in which it can be referenced). Scopes shall be determinable during translation. Scopes may be nested (i.e., lexically embedded). A declaration may be made in any scope. Anything other than a variable shall be accessable within any nested scope of its definition.
Procedures, functions, types, labels, exception situations, and statements shall not be assignable to variables, be computable as values of expressions, or be usable as nongeneric parameters to procedures or functions.
There shall be no default initial-values for variables.
Assignment and an implicit value access operation shall be automatically defined for each variable.
The language shall distinguish between open scopes (i.e., those that are automatically included in the scope of more globally declared variables) and closed scopes (i.e., those in which nonlocal variables must be explicitly Imported). Bodies of functions, procedures, and processes shall be closed scopes. Bodies of classical control structures shall be open scopes.