C# static member “inheritance” - why does this exist at all?

Question

In C#, a superclass\'s static members are \"inherited\" into the subclasses scope. For instance:

class A { public static int M() { return 1; } }
class B : A         


        

Answer 1

So... What's the alternative?

The question mentions...

why doesn't the compiler report an error? After all, there's no "M" method in "B"...

But there is a derived "M" method in "B" class.

If the compiler did not present the programmer a unified virtual table for base cases, then the programmer would have to go hunting through base types to find static methods. This would break polymorphism.

Wikipedia...

Subtype polymorphism, almost universally called just polymorphism in the context of object-oriented programming, is the ability of one type, A, to appear as and be used like another type, B....

In strongly typed languages, polymorphism usually means that type A somehow derives from type B, or type C implements an interface that represents type B.