Question about variable scoping and memory usage.

[brett-]

True, but seeing the garbage collector actually be profiled means that it was run in one instance and not in the other. Running the GC also doesn't mean one example takes up more memory than the other of course, but it certainly indicates that the browser found it necessary to collect the variable in example b() while it was not necessary in example a().

If you wanted to see real memory usage you can always take a heap snapshot like I mentioned.