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

It does define a local scope... the variables declared inside curly braces have the braces' scope. However what you are trying to do is redeclare an already existing variable. In my opinion, it's not Java that's wrong in this case, but C++ for letting you do it (I assume that's what you were comparing it to). Nonetheless, even if the language would allow it, why would you do it? Poor readability right there, and possible cause for bugs.