in your sample ToDoList (page 111) we have

ListView myListView = (ListView) find....;
final EditText myEditText = (EditText) find...;

Why this EditText is made FINAL and not the ListView?

Maybe this is basic but I have done some research (with Schildt's book) and didn't find the answer

Thanks for your answer

I also want to know more about this, this is the sole reason I registered on this website as I cannot find any other source on Google that explains this.

i guess that the reason of final has to do with "threading", but not in chapter 4,
but in chapter 8's todolist.
So i think that in the code of chapter 4 the use of final is not necessary, but in chapter 8 it is just safer to do so, as an (asynchronous) content provider is used in that todo list with his own thread, and i can imagine that the access to EditText from which the string is used to create a new record in the database is only safe when EditText is declared final.
So it might be that the author created the code with a content provider before he simplified to the code of chapter 4, and has left the "final" attribute

Hi Kees,

Thanks for responding so quickly, however I must say that my reason for questioning this is not because I do not know what the final keyword does but, simply put I am not sure if it has the same advantages as for Java compilers or if it as you just explained.

I posted this question on StackOverflow but I did not have enough points to include the pa4d tag. Here is the link: Are there (Performance) benefits of Views in Android that use the final keyword e.g final EditText?.

I am at Chapter 5 at the moment, I am going to read Chapter 8 so I can understand your explanation thoroughly before I post again. However, I think that it's best if the author himself comment on this to clarify since the final keyword has many advantages e.g full immutability for thread-safety and optimization by the compiler

Hi,
My guess is not closer to the truth, as i checked Chapter_8_To-do_List with myEditText without the final, by declaring it as a class member in stead of a local variable, and it still run perfectly, i mean without runtime errors.
So the compiler error "Cannot refer to a non-final variable myEditText inside an inner class defined in a different method" seems to be the only reason to make it final. However i don't see that inner class here i must confess
Let's hope that Reto himself will clarify what the real benefits are!

I think I may have found the answer on StackOverflow:
link to possible answer.

We can't post pictures, if we could I would post a picture of where the inner class is and the method inside it. I deleted the final keyword and Eclipse showed me in
which inner class and method the problem originates. The inner class is View.OnkeyListener and the method is public boolean onKey. It would be wise to use
Chapter 4 To Do List Part 1 as I don't know how the code changes in Chapter 8.