local scope in Java

Question

Why is it that curly braces do not define a separate local scope in Java? I was expecting this to be a feature common to the main curly brace languages (C, C++, Java, C#).<

Answer 1

The braces do scope the variable but anything inside a brace can also 'see' further up the brace. In all the cases you have, mine is already defined as fido.

To put it more succinctly. The children are scoped to their parents as well but not vice versa.