Even for local variables, knowing that it is declared final means that I don't need to worry about the reference being changed later on. This means that when debugging and I see that variable later on, I am confident that it is referring to the same object. That is one less thing I need to worry about when looking for a bug. A bonus is that if 99% of variables are declared final, then the few variables which really are variable stand out better. Also, the final lets the compiler find some more possible stupid mistakes that might otherwise go unnoticed.

我从来没有遇到过在变量上有最后一个关键字就能阻止我犯错误的情况，所以目前我认为这是一种巨大的浪费时间。

除非有真正的理由这样做(比如你想要明确指出变量是final的)，否则我宁愿不这样做，因为我发现这样做会使代码的可读性降低。

但是，如果您没有发现它会使代码更难阅读或更长时间地编写，那么无论如何都可以使用它。

编辑:作为一个澄清(并试图赢回反对票)，我不是说不要将常量标记为最终值，我是说不要做这样的事情:

public String doSomething() {
  final String first = someReallyComplicatedExpressionToGetTheString();
  final String second = anotherReallyComplicatedExpressionToGetAnother();

  return first+second;
}

在我看来，这只是让代码更难阅读。

同样值得记住的是，所有final的作用都是防止你重新分配变量，它并没有使它成为不可变或类似的东西。

有效的Java有一个条目写着“偏爱不可变对象”。将字段声明为final可以帮助您在这方面迈出一小步，但是对于真正的不可变对象来说，当然还有更多的事情要做。

如果您知道对象是不可变的，那么可以在多个线程/客户端之间共享它们以供读取，而无需担心同步问题，并且更容易推断程序的运行方式。

I have to read a lot of code for my job. Missing final on instance variables is one of the top things to annoy me and makes understanding the code unnecessarily difficult. For my money, final on local variables causes more clutter than clarity. The language should have been designed to make that the default, but we have to live with the mistake. Sometimes it is useful particularly with loops and definite assignment with an if-else tree, but mostly it tends to indicate your method is too complicated.

Final应该总是用于常量。当定义变量的规则很复杂时，它甚至对于短期存在的变量(在单个方法中)也很有用。

例如:

final int foo;
if (a)
    foo = 1;
else if (b)
    foo = 2;
else if (c)
    foo = 3;
if (d)        // Compile error:  forgot the 'else'
    foo = 4;
else
    foo = -1;

Final显然应该用在常量上，并加强不可变性，但在方法上还有另一个重要的用途。

Effective Java在这方面有一个完整的项目(项目15)，指出了意外继承的陷阱。实际上，如果您没有为继承而设计和记录您的类，那么从它继承可能会带来意想不到的问题(该项目提供了一个很好的例子)。因此，建议在不打算继承的任何类和/或方法上使用final。

That may seem draconian, but it makes sense. If you are writing a class library for use by others then you don't want them inheriting from things that weren't designed for it - you will be locking yourself into a particular implementation of the class for back compatibility. If you are coding in a team there is nothing to stop another member of the team from removing the final if they really have to. But the keyword makes them think about what they are doing, and warns them that the class they are inheriting from wasn't designed for it, so they should be extra careful.