**Why Transient:** Excludes field from serialization. Use for: computed/cached values, sensitive data (passwords), non-Serializable (Thread, Socket).
**Behavior:** On deserialize, transient fields get default (null, 0, false). Custom logic via writeObject/readObject.
**Production:** Mark passwords, connection handles, threads. For Spark: broadcast variables and accumulators are serialized—ensure DTOs don't include non-serializable refs....
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