title: Use of private constructor to prevent instantiation of class?
body: <p>Right now I'm thinking about adding a private constructor to a class that only holds some <code>String</code> constants.</p>
  
  <pre><code>public class MyStrings {
    // I want to add this:
    private MyString() {}
  
    public static final String ONE = "something";
    public static final String TWO = "another";
    ...
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is there any <strong>performance</strong> or <strong>memory</strong> overhead if I add a private constructor to this class to prevent someone to instantiate it?</p>
  
  <p>Do you think it's necessary at all or that private constructors for this purpose are a waste of time and code clutter?</p>
  
  <p><strong>UPDATE</strong></p>
  
  <p>I'm going for a final class with private constructor and a descriptive javadoc for the class. I can't use a ENUM (which I'd prefer) because I'm stuck on Java 1.4 for now. This would be my modification:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/**
   * Only for static access, do not instantiate this class.
   */
  public final class MyStrings {
    private MyString() {}
  
    public static final String ONE = "something";
    public static final String TWO = "another";
    ...
  }
  </code></pre>