3 ms·

A static class in C# isn't really a class, it's just a namespace to hold functions.

• imtringued 6y ago
  Classes in OOP are type dependent namespaces. That's the entire reason why classes even exist. You can now reuse function and member names inside classes instead of having to globally qualify them to prevent name collisions. In C you would do something like class_name_function_name(var, par1, par2). The OOP counterpart would look like this in Java: ClassName var = new ClassName(); var.functionName(par1, par2). Now you might be asking if this is really such a big deal. I mean it is pretty obvious that this can be useful even if you limit yourself to static dispatch and completely avoid inheritance and polymorphism. The reality is that functional programming languages like Haskell don't support type dependent namespaces. When you name a field in a Haskell record then no other record is allowed to have a field with the same name.
  • wvenable 6y ago
    A static class in C# can't have any instance data, instance methods, and can't be instantiated. It's literally a namespace in everything but name.
    • cgrealy 6y ago
      But it does have class scoping rules. You can have public and private static members.