Discussion: private final static vs public final static

Question

take following class variable:public final static int constant = 1;Is there any harm in making this variable public if it's not used (and never will be) in any other class?
Under the same assumption Is there any point in making this variable static?
tx for your input

Answer 1

Is there any harm in making this variablepublic
if it's not used (and never will
be) in any other class?Harm? No. Use? Neither.I suppose it makes no difference at all concerning
runtime performance?
Under the same assumption Is there any point inmaking this variable
static?If the creation of the constant is costly, for
instance. A logger is private final static most of
the time.Same here, does making a variable final or static
have any influence on runtime performance?No. And for 'expensive' operations (say, parsing a XML configuration file, which only needs to occur once), making a variable static will improve performance.
- Saish