[jacquesm]

That's a good rule. I usually declare variables as close to their intended scope of use as I can get them, so for instance, right inside the block where the variable is going to be used.

The temptation then becomes to re-use the name but I avoid that to make it easier to see which declaration belongs to which variable.

Declaring all the variables at the top of a function was a pretty hard to break habit.

[jonprins]

I tend to do the same thing. Except, since JavaScript doesn't have block scope, it all ends up at the top of the function.

Which is much more preferable than scattered around the function. Especially due to hoisting[1].

My functions typically go in the order of:

declare variables; declare any local functions if necessary (most of the time these eventually get refactored out to somewhere else, because they tend to be one-off utility functions that can be abstracted); do stuff; return value.

1. http://www.adequatelygood.com/2010/2/JavaScript-Scoping-and-...