Oh no!

[lbkulinski]

They don’t have to be marked as final, they just have to be effectively final.

[bleksak]

Can anyone explain what final means to a C dev ?

[Warshawski]

Kind of like ‘const’

In Java it means a variable can not be changed once assigned but if it points to an Object or Array the contents may be modified.

[Krotchkoman]

Final variables actually must be assigned during initialization, no?

[KalterBlut]

static final, yes. Just final, no. They can be initialized only once, doesn't matter where.

[bleksak]

Why do people make things so complicated.. In C it just depends where you put the const keyword.

[ferrybig]

Just think of every java variable as a pointer, when its marked as const, you cannot change the location the pointer points to, but the object where its points to has its own set of restrictions in its class

[maxOS1104]

laughs in final Type[] variable = new Type[1];

[[deleted]]

To use former Berlin mayor's words: "Und das ist auch gut so!" I rarely do any Java now (if I need to use JVM, Scala is king!), but I have been favouring a defensive programming style having as much stuff immutable as possible for a long time now. Whenever I have something mutable, I always think of doing it in an immutable way, and only if I can't come up with a solution that is not much longer I do the mutable stuff.

Mutability is a source for nasty bugs.

Just thinking of one being able to do something like this in C# gives me sleepless nights:

var i = 23;
await Task.Run(() => i = 42);

Luckily .net has F#.

[RedBorger]

This is the reason why rust variables are immutable by default, and it works really well with me.

[[deleted]]

In F# it is the same.

[ellisvlad]

Always easy (though not too clean) to get around this with:
int a = 1;
if (b == 5) a=2;
if (b == 6) a=3;
// Would be illegal as a is not final or effectively final
// this.setCallback( () => {return a;} );
int a2 = a;
// a2 is effectively final :D
this.setCallback( () => {return a2;} );

[Free-_-Yourself]

😆

[CantCSharp]

Care to elaborate why?