>Here's a stupid question... What are the pros and cons of passing parameters to
>procedures and functions as opposed to making the memory variables PUBLIC and
>using them in procedures and functions without passing them as parameters?

I have a few public variables in my applications. The need to have them public is that they are used from several areas in the application.

You may also add some properties in the application object in order to avoid public variables.

As for parameters, I always try to use only one and that is an object or more than one but only objects. By passing an object, you can refer to that object properties which mean you don't need to pass parameters anymore.