You are right - the 'static' itself is a mistake, but not a terrible one. But when the line: Foo foo = new Foo(); is followed up with: assertEquals(

You are right - the 'static' itself is a mistake, but not a terrible one. But when the line: Foo foo = new Foo(); is followed up with: assertEquals( if one types in anything other than -1, 0, Integer.MAX_VALUE, Integer.MIN_VALUE etc, big blaring warning alarms should go off in a senior developer's head. Even after it is typed in, when you read through the code it should have stood out to you.