[tialaramex]

Just two of the "rules" is enough to see that there's no sense here:

1. It should be hard or impossible to use incorrectly. For example, counter() keeps increments consistent. 2. If you change observable state, restore it.

That can be summarised as "To prevent mistakes: Don't make any mistakes". It made lots of sense once I saw this was by a C++ programmer, C++ is the language with, as a prominent C++ practitioner put it: False Positives for the question: Is this a valid program?

If you're used to a language which gaslights you by having the compiler not emit any diagnostics whatsoever and just calmly handing you a nonsensical output executable because what you wrote was subtly wrong obviously global variables seem fine, what's not to like? You just have to be inhumanly competent at all times, which was the baseline requirement for the entire language.

[levodelellis]

I had a feeling someone would bring this up (I'm the author.) Your state really shouldn't be depending on IDs or handles from a counter function. I'm not sure if most people can agree with what is considered using a global variable which is why I wanted to define it near the start

[tialaramex]

> I'm not sure if most people can agree with what is considered using a global variable

Sure, for example it turns out that by "global" you mean "thread local" and I expect lots of people don't agree with you about that.