title: Should Helper/Utility Classes be abstract?
body: <p>I commonly find myself extracting common behavior out of classes into helper/utility classes that contain nothing but a set of static methods.  I've often wondered if I should be declaring these classes as abstract, since I can't really think of a valid reason to ever instantiate these?  </p>
  
  <p>What would the Pros and Cons be to declaring such a class as abstract.</p>
  
  <pre><code>public [abstract] class Utilities{
  
     public static String getSomeData(){
         return "someData";
     }
  
     public static void doSomethingToObject(Object arg0){
     }
  }
  </code></pre>