1. A method that facilitates importing static members of a class, comprising: receiving a compilation unit containing code to be compiled; examining code associated with the compilation unit to locate a static import declaration that identifies one or more static members of the class to import; and upon finding such a static import declaration, recording the static import declaration in a symbol table used to compile the compilation unit; whereby the names for the one or more static members of the class can appear within the compilation unit without being prefixed with a name for the class.