From Vitaly Davidovich:

Suppose we have the following code:

private static final long[] ARR = new long[10];
private static final int ITERATIONS = 500 * 1000 * 1000;


static void loop() {
    int i = ITERATIONS;
    while(--i >= 0) {
         ARR[4] = i;
     }
}

My expectation would be that loop() effectively compiles to:
ARR[4] = 0;
ret;

However, an actual loop is compiled.