Agnes,

PRIVATE variables are visible to the routine that creates them and all routines below that one in the calling stack. PUBLIC variables live beyond the end of the routine that creates them, that is the ONLY thing that PUBLIC causes is for the variablke to live beyoind the end of the program that created it and it is very poor design to require that a variable live beyond the life of the rountine that created it. It violates every tenant of programming from structured to OOP. No program should have a left over impact on the environment from which it was called other than the purpose for its existance. All programs should clean up any memory they use before they exit and PUBLIC variables are a direct violation of this principle.

I have no problem condeming PUBLIC variables as they are the bane of all things good in program design.