Can this Java singleton get rebuilt repeatedly in WebSphere 6?

Question

I\'m trying to track down an issue in our system and the following code worries me. The following occurs in our doPost() method in the primary servlet (names have been changed

Answer 1

The only thing I would change about that Singleton implementation (other than not using a Singleton at all) is to make the instance field final. The static field will be initialised once, on class load. Since classes are loaded lazily, you effectively get lazy instantiation for free.

Of course, if it's loaded from separate class loaders you get multiple "singletons", but that's a limitation of every singleton idiom in Java.

EDIT: The firstTime() and doPreparations() bits do look suspect though. Can't they be moved into the constructor of the singleton instance?