Why declare the int "final" and not just "private"?

Hi Jonas!

"final" is mainly used to prevent changes to a variable after it is initialized, making it a constant. Making a variable "private" will only allow it to be used in the class it was declared in. This helps with security. When we make a variable both "private" and "final" it cannot be changed and it cannot be accessed outside this class. Now, these private variables can be accessed outside the class through public methods, for example :

public class MyClass {

private final int num = 1;

public int getNum() {
    return num;
}

} 

In the code above the integer variable num is "final" so it is a constant and cannot be changed. num is also a "private" variable so the only way to access it out side MyClass is through public methods like the "getNum" method above. This technique of making the fields in a class private and providing access to the fields via public methods is called encapsulation, and I'm sure you'll be using it very often in the future.

Hope this helps :)

-Axel