I and a lot of other developers would disagree with the statement "Static methods are evil for many reasons including philosophical (they're not OO) and practical (you can't override their behavior)."
1) Whenever you write a method that only accesses static data of a class, you should declare the method as static. 2) It is not correct to say that static methods can't be overriden. They can be overridden with another static method. You can't override a static method to be non-static, however. 3) There are many cases where using the static modifier on a method is totally appropriate. Typically, they are used on methods that provide a very specific functionality that will never change. Using the static modifier on such methods also reduces the overall memory footprint of an application. Regards, Richard -----Original Message----- From: David Graham [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 9:22 AM To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: RE: [OT] Use of Static Methods > > One of my programmers asked me whether or not it is OK to define > helper methods as 'static' - and I realized that I didn't know the > answer. So I guess the question is, in a web application, can common > code be factored out > to a helper class and marked as 'static'? Static methods are evil for many reasons including philosophical (they're not OO) and practical (you can't override their behavior). You should use a Singleton class with non-static methods. Struts' RequestUtils class is a good example of why you should never use static methods. Developers want to override their behavior but can't because everything is static. David > Are there any major problems > with > doing this? I should know the answer, but just can't put my thumb on > it right now.... 8) > > TIA! > > Jerry Jalenak > Team Lead, Web Publishing > LabOne, Inc. > 10101 Renner Blvd. > Lenexa, KS 66219 > (913) 577-1496 > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > This transmission (and any information attached to it) may be > confidential and is intended solely for the use of the individual or > entity to which it is > addressed. If you are not the intended recipient or the person > responsible for > delivering the transmission to the intended recipient, be advised that > you have > received this transmission in error and that any use, dissemination, > forwarding, > printing, or copying of this information is strictly prohibited. If you > have > received this transmission in error, please immediately notify LabOne at > the > following email address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
