Keith and others:

>1) a STATIC declaration which would be similar to the C construct
allowing a variable's value to persist between execution iterations,
but allow the variable to be scoped as well. Such a declaration
might also allow scoping so that one could have a LOCAL STATIC or
a PRIVATE STATIC variable (obviously a PUBLIC STATIC wouldn't make much
sense). STATIC by itself could default to either (as you choose).

I think OOP takes away much of this reqiurement. Private static vars could be compared with a property of an object. The local versions could be compared with a protected property.

Personally I can't see other situations where this might be of any help. IMHO using this kind of variable *could* make programs more complex while there is no need to, when a good OO design is applied. It could be another feature which could confuse developers and make bad designs.

Just my .2 (guilder)cents.