Additional information on the 'final' keyword

The section on the Java final keyword has been expanded. Previously, we concentrated on the use of 'final' for thread-safety but did not give much information about a separate use of 'final' to indicate that a class or method cannot be overridden. The new material expands upon this use with a look at the performance implications of the 'final' keyword as a class or method modifier.

A common view that I have both heard among colleagues and seen in various Java textbooks is that 'final' is as much a performance hint to the compiler as a specification of design. In the new section, I present some data showing that this view is probably misguided: the timing of calls to methods to final vs non-final classes comes down to whether the JIT compiler can determine at runtime the precise subclass of an object rather than whether or not the class in question is or may be overridden.