Java finality

Mon Feb 7 23:18:00 GMT 2005

This article
 http://www.javaspecialists.co.za/archive/Issue096.html
explains how final fields can be modified, and that this behaviour is 
sanctioned by JSR 133. However, I find it rather disturbing. I can see 
the value of being able to subvert programmer-defined accessibility via 
the setAccessible method for e.g. IDE vendors and orthogonal 
persistence mechanisms, but I can't see any value in being able to 
subvert final fields, especially in ways which are not consistent.
The results for gcj (recent CVS HEAD) on the same corpus show that even 
the one change not permitted (albeit silently) by Sun's implementation 
is effected without IllegalAccessException. The output of 
FinalFieldChange is:
 Ng Keng Yap, 27 of IQ=150 from Malaysia
What are other people's thoughts on this matter?
-- 
Chris Burdess