So I can have a variable hold the type of a class, and then later instantiate that class. That's really really wild.
I'm sure C# has this, but I wasn't expecting in java.
Reminds me of .NET that has this sweet ability that you can compile C# code and then run it from within the library itself (not just system calls for programs, but the lib itself exposes the methodology of the compilers). IIRC
yeah, not typical, but some things take advantage of that.
For example, In Spring, you configure instances of (typically Singleton) objects in an XML file stating the type and the Spring container uses that to instantiate them.
like:
<bean id="myCar" type="com.autos.Car" />
basically behind the scenes its doing:
Class myCarClass = new Class("com.autos.Car");
Object myCar = myCarClass.getInstance();
(or something similar, I can't remember exact syntax)