Joseph D. Darcy wrote:
Classes with only private constructors, like j.u.Objects, are effectively final. Adding final is harmless but unnecessary in these cases. The platform is a bit inconsistent here; j.u.Collections is *not* marked final while j.l.Math is.
For a certain value of effective. *Current* *Java* *source* may not subclass a non-final class with only private constructors. I believe a verfiable subclass can be created as a class file that does not have a constructor (or possibly definitely throws an exception?). Unless something is seriously wrong, that shouldn't cause a security issue. It might be an issue for other languages on the JVM.
In practice, it doesn't matter very much; I'll consider final-izing j.u.Objects on the next round of edits.
Oh don't put a finalizer on it. ;) Tom Hawtin
