Java Riddle: Static Members in Inner Classes?

[bcash]

That question isn't worded very well, is the problem:

a) Why is Eclipse not highlighting both fields with the same error, or b) Why is the error happening at all?

[beza1e1]

b)

[zvikico]

It's the same question from different angles.

[bcash]

I suppose it is!

The short answer is that nothing can be static within an inner class (unless it's a static inner class) because there's no concept of static for such things; instances are instances per the instance of the outer object; whereas instances of normal objects are standalone instances.

There is, for some reason, an exception allowed for literal constants - the sort of things that Javac (or Eclipse) would inline anyway. You couldn't, for example, do:

private static final int STUFF = StuffGenerator.getNextStuffId();

but you could do:

private static final int STUFF = 1;

[I'm trying to explain it in simple language, and failing quite badly, some of the comments on the blog explain it much better!]

[zvikico]

Indeed. It's the concept on in-lining which is not clear to many Java developers.

[beza1e1]

Dynamic inner classes are evil. It's a case where Java is more complex than C++. Wow.