Python is the same here, for example, any many other languages too. Making `a` a local variable here is rather ugly thing to do, but it's (somewhat) consistent

Python is the same here, for example, any many other languages too. Making `a` a local variable here is rather ugly thing to do, but it's (somewhat) consistent with how `function` keyword (not an expression) works. The point being: JS implements full and proper lexical scoping; implementing lexical scoping for every block is not a requirement for having lexical scoping.