I believe that local variables should be declared just before use (or as close as possible to use). I think this makes the code easier to understand and in most case you are able to declare and initilize the variable at the same time.
I also found
http://www.javaranch.com/styleLong.jsp (see 3.3) recommending to "Declare variables as close as possible to where they are used".
My problem is that we are starting on a new project with lot of newbie programmers and wanted to lay down coding standards (with the Sun Conventions
http://java.sun.com/docs/codeconv/html/CodeConventions.doc5.html#16817 as the base). The only point I do not agree with in the Suns conventions
doc is the one on declaring variables at the top of the block.
Should I let this particular standard be left open to the developers in my project or is it better to set one of these conventions as a standard and have developers follow it. (Most developers are new and have not yet picked a convention).
Any suggestions/comments?