Summary

In this chapter, we started by explaining that Java uses block scope. A block is delimited by { }. A variable is visible from the point of declaration to the closing } of that block. As blocks (and therefore, scopes) can be nested, this means that a variable defined in a block is visible to any inner/nested blocks. The inverse is not true, however. A variable declared in an inner block is not visible in an outer block

Conditional statements enable us to make decisions and are based on the evaluation of a condition resulting in true or false. The if statement allows several branches to be evaluated. Once one branch evaluates to true and is executed, no other branch is evaluated. An if statement can be coded on its own without any else if or else clause. The else if and else clauses are optional. However, if an else clause is present, it must be the last clause. We saw how a complex if example can lead to code verbosity.

We briefly discussed packages and the Scanner class...