I don't like them in general either, but there's one place I use them extensively: JUnit tests (statically import Mockito, Hamcrest, Assert, etc). It mostly ha

I don't like them in general either, but there's one place I use them extensively: JUnit tests (statically import Mockito, Hamcrest, Assert, etc). It mostly has to do with how much the library tries to be a DSL, and how much readability will suffer if I don't use a static import. IMO, this assertThat(6, isGreaterThan(5)); reads a heckuva lot better than Assert.assertThat(6, Matchers.isGreaterThan(5)); Of course the combination of poor Java type inference and Generics-heavy libraries make it so that often I have to do the latter to make use of angle braces, but that's another story.