Cloneable and Immutable

[Florian Weimer]

* Max Wang:

> Also, if it's a final class, is it better to simply return this?

No, in this case, it's better not to implement clone() at all.  One
thing that's pretty clear in the Object#clone() contract is that it's
a fresh object, that is, that x.clone() != x.  Even with immutable
objects, the difference is observable with synchronization and
identity-based hashing.

-- 
Florian Weimer                <fweimer at bfk.de>
BFK edv-consulting GmbH       http://www.bfk.de/
Kriegsstraße 100              tel: +49-721-96201-1
D-76133 Karlsruhe             fax: +49-721-96201-99