You needn't worry about the "hows" but
you should know what inlining is and what are the implications of inlining. Here's an example:
Compile these three classes and run InlineTest. It will output "xxxxx". Now change s in Parent to "yyyyy", recompile Parent (not Child) and re-run InlineTest. It still prints "xxxxx". The reason is that s has been inlined in Child since it was marked as final. Try the same thing without s being marked as final and changes to s in Parent are picked up immediately in Child.
[ April 25, 2003: Message edited by: Thomas Paul ]