Question

How is typing:

public class Example  
{  
    private Cat whiskers;  

    public void makeCat()  
    {  
        whiskers = new Cat();  
    }  
}  

different than:

public class Example  
{  
    public void makeCat()  
    {  
        Cat whiskers = new Cat();  
    }  
}

it seems that the first example is more work because you can now only create Cat objects named whiskers from it. Why declare it at all?

Answer 1

In the first you are declaring a private variable that may be used within the same instance by other methods (or properties). However, in your second example you are just declaring a variable with a local scope, in other words, this variable will only be visible within makeCat().