Hi,
When you say "process" do you actually mean separate operating system processes -- i.e., separately launched programs? Note that the values of static variables, like all
Java variables, are confined to the individual Java virtual machine in which they are created. In other words, if I write a program that continuously prints the value of a static int in some class, and I have another program that continuously increments that same static variable in that same class, and I run them at two different command prompts on my computer, then the printing program will just print "0... 0... 0". Each program has its own copy of static variables (actually, each program might have several copies, but we'll save that wrinkle for another time.)
If two programs need to share data or otherwise communicate, then they must do so explicitly. They will generally communicate via some form of networking: raw sockets, HTTP, RMI, CORBA... there are many choices, but none of them are invisible. You can find background information about any of these elsewhere on the Ranch, in Sun's documentation, or via Google -- if you have any specific questions we could answer them here.