Why is the class “Program” declared as static?

Question

When you create a WinForm App, you get an automatically generated template of Program class in the Program.cs file.

Which look

Answer 1

Avoid over-thinking this. This code just comes out of the project template, pre-cooked in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\CSharp\Windows\1033\WindowsApplication\Program.cs

There's nothing to stop you from modifying that code, removing the static keyword is entirely reasonable if that's the way you prefer it. There is a bit of logic to it, you after all have only one program so declaring it static does make sense. But compare it to the project template for a Console mode app, It also declares a Program class but didn't make it static. It doesn't make extra sense at all to make that class not static for a console app.

There are certainly other good reasons to modify the project template code. It for example puts the Dispose() method for a Form derived class in the Designer.cs file. Not a great place for it, the "never modify designer generated code" rule does get Winforms programmers paralyzed. Moving that method into the Form.cs file and then modifying it is just fine.

This is merely "most likely to fall in the pit of success" code. Never hesitate to change it.