If you’re writing code calling static methods on instances of classes, you deserve to have that code broken.
This is, in C#, all methods are called according to an object's apparent-type, not its actual-type, by default. To get the Java-behavior, a C#-method would need to be declared `virtual` (or `abstract`), and then more-derived methods would need to choose to `override` them (rather than hide them, often via `new`).
Part of the advantage might be performance. This is, methods that go with the apparent-type don't need to do a virtual-lookup-table resolution, which can save some work in method-calls.
Another advantage is that it can help provide more flexibility in class-hierarchies, since more-derived classes can "hide" less-derived classes' methods without overriding them. It's probably not something that folks really need to do too often, but it's nice to have an easy solution when such a case occurs.
For example, [this comment](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31379783 ) provided code showing the issue in this branch of the thread using `static` in Java. Here's the same thing in C# without using `static` (except for `Program.Main()`):
public class Program
{
public static void Main()
{
A a = new B();
if (a is B b)
{
a.Print(); // Prints "A".
b.Print(); // Prints "B".
}
}
}
public class A { public void Print() { System.Console.WriteLine("A"); } }
public class B:A { public new void Print() { System.Console.WriteLine("B"); } }
Generally speaking, virtual-methods resolve with dependence on the object they're called on since they consult a [virtual-method table](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_method_table ). Non-virtual methods can resolve without considering the object they're called on (whether static or not) because they call the method that belongs to the apparent-type.
That's what you started talking about, but that's not what I'm talking about.
> "calling static methods on instances of classes"
That's from an ancestor, somewhere upthread. Here it is as a c# expression.
"abc".Format("size: {0}", 7)
Maybe I'm not understanding a word or something, but the description of the problem is definitely about "static".
For example:
public class A
{
// If a programmer writes this:
public void DoSomething(int x) { /* ... */ }
// ...then C# sees this:
public static void DoSomething(A this, int x)
{
if (this == null) { throw new NullArgumentException(); }
/* ... */
}
}
C# even lets programmers write methods that can be called on an instance OR as `static`: [extension methods](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/programming-g... ).
Then there's a difference between C# and Java: in C#, non-static methods can be `virtual` if marked as such, whereas in Java, all non-static methods are automatically `virtual`.
---
Anyway, my point about the perspective from [this comment](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31383483 ),
> If you’re writing code calling static methods on instances of classes, you deserve to have that code broken.
, was that that's basically what C# does by-default, ignoring syntactic-sugar.
Because, in C#, methods aren't `virtual` by-default, so when C#-programmers call a default method on an instance, they're calling it non-virtually, much like a Java-`static` method -- it may look a little different in C# due to the syntactic-sugar, but it's basically the same thing.
To demonstrate that same-ness, I took the Java code that used `static` from [this comment](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31379783 ), then showed the same without `static` in C# in [this comment](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31385859 ).
Of course, I don't mean that they look exactly the same, due to the syntactic-sugar. Just that they're conceptually the same in terms of logical-structuring and behaviorally the same in terms of what they actually do (e.g., how they printed the same responses in those examples).