>>Conventional wisdom is to steer clear of Public variables as much as possible. If a variable needs global scope throughout the application, declare it in the main ( as Private )
>
>Doesn't seem like that would be any different than setting it PUBLIC.
>Is it?

There are differences, public variables can cause various problems. Jim Booth has discussed this at length in several threads. You might want to search them to get specifics. Nevertheless, some like Public variables and use them. I try to stay away from them as much as possible. As I mentioned, it is "conventional wisdom."