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From: Daniel Pitts <newsgroup.nospam@virtualinfinity.net>
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Subject: Re: borrowing Constants
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Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2011 11:25:49 -0700
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On 9/23/11 6:39 PM, Roedy Green wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:10:28 -0300, Arved Sandstrom
> <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca>  wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
> someone who said :
>
>> Which logical place is not in the code at all. Granted, I don't know
>> that Roedy's example is doing anything more than using "VERSION" as a
>> generic variable name (I hope).
>
> I chose it as an easy-to-understand example.  In my example, VERSION
> is something you might display in a an About box.
>
> The question is really about accidentally dragging in some giant class
> when you had no intention of using its code.

If you are using a field from it, you *are* using its code.

Imagine the following scenario:

public class MyConstants {
    public static final String VERSION;
    public static final int ZERO;
    static {
	 ZERO = 0;
          VERSION = SomeOtherClass.calculateVersionNumber();
    }
}

public class UsesOtherClass {
    public static final VERSION = MyConstants.VERSION;
}

When UsesOtherClass is initialized, it requires MyConstants *and* 
SomeOtherClass to be initialized.

In general, if you use some code, you are transiently using its 
dependencies as well.

Although, I thought I read somewhere that constants can sometimes be 
inlined (which can lead to other surprising behaviors if you recompile 
only some of your classes on make).