According to the language spec, 8.3.1 static and final are one of 7 field modifiers which only
modify class fields (Not local variables). This makes sense, but has the potiental to trip up C programmers
(and does - i have fp.bugs to prove it). A better error message could save a lot of hours of debugging.

see the following code:

import java.lang.*;
public class t {
  public void main(String args[]) {
     final <add any field modifier here> int j;
     System.out.println(j);
  }
}


t.java:3: Missing term.
  public void main(String args[]) {
                                   ^
t.java:3: ';' expected.
  public void main(String args[]) {
                                   ^
t.java:4: Invalid expression statement.
  final int j;
  ^
3 errors