The static keyword on a member in many languages mean that you shouldn't create an instance of that class to be able to have access to that member. However, I don't see any justification to make an entire class static. Why and when should I make a class static?
What benefits do I get from making a class static? I mean, after declaring a static class, one should still declare all members which he/she wants to have access to without instantiation, as static too.
This means that for example, Math class could be declared normal (not static), without affecting how developers code. In other words, making a class static or normal is kind of transparent to developers.
Best Answer
It makes it obvious to users how the class is used. For instance, it would be complete nonsense to write the following code:
C# doesn’t have to forbid this but since it serves no purpose, might as well tell the user that. Certain people (including me) adhere to the philosophy that programming languages (and APIs …) should be as restrictive as possible to make them hard to use wrong: the only allowed operations are then those that are meaningful and (hopefully) correct.