Classes, specializations, and statics

[Brian Goetz]

> Way 3 may be the least intrusive from the JVM's perspective, but it 
> does complicate migration. One disadvantage is that it requires 
> changes to declaration sites _and_ usage sites, while way 2 only 
> requires changes to the declaration site. This may be fine in the 
> empty collection case, but what about cases where the static field is 
> public? We can't control those usage sites.

Also, it is less transparent -- one more encoding for non-java languages 
to emulate / reflective code to recognize.