Re: JLS 3/e -- Lots Of Errors

Here???s another fun one.

In section 4.8, on page 58, it says:

     The use of raw types is allowed only as a concession to compatibility of
     legacy code. The use of raw types in code written after the introduction
     of genericity into the Java programming language is strongly
     discouraged. It is possible that future versions of the Java programming
     language will disallow the use of raw types.

(That last sentence is in bold.) However, in the discussion on page 136:

     Note that expression names may be qualified by type names, but not by
     types in general. A consequence is that it is not possible to access a
     class variable through a parameterized type
         class Foo<T> {
         public static int classVar = 42;
         }
         Foo<String>.classVar = 91; // illegal
     Instead, one writes
         Foo.classVar = 91;
     This does not restrict the language in any meaningful way. Type
     parameters may not be used in the types of static variables, and so the
     actual parameters of a parameterized type can never influence the type
     of a static variable. Therefore, no expressive power is lost.
     Technically, the type name Foo above is a raw type, but this use of raw
     types is harmless, and does not give rise to warnings.

So one the one hand raw types are deprecated, but on the other hand they are
the only permitted way to access static fields of a parameterized type.