Okay, to revisit the original question, this is a situation where, by using ancillary
information, the
java compiler can confuse a new programmer. It is definitely true
that static methods cannot operate on objects. From this perspective, for a static
method, the code presented above is definitely wrong. However, this syntax is
allowed because the compiler does not use the object. Rather, it uses the type
of the reference variable, as demonstrated below.
Jim ...
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