What's the secret to static class members

[Guido via Digitalmars-d-learn]

On Wednesday, 29 June 2016 at 15:18:53 UTC, Guido wrote:
> I'm using a static class member in a parent class, but can't 
> get the compiler to see it.
>
> Class Grid{
>   public:
>   uint xdim;
> }
>
> Class Holder : Grid {
>   uint var;
> }
>
> Any of the following should work, but none of them do:
> Grid.xdim = 0;
>
> grid = new Grid;
> grid.xdim = 0;
>
> holder = new Holder;
> holder.xdim = 0;
>
> This is the way static class vars were intended to work. What 
> magics have I forgotten?
>
> Platform
> DMD latest, Windows 7
> Visual D

The problem is actually much more profound. The classes need to 
be declared outside the main() scope. WTF?!?!?!

I put them in main() so they would be in scope. This seems like a 
*MAJOR* design flaw with the language, not to mention the 
compiler not giving useful feedback. This decision, if it is a 
decision, makes no sense given all the attention to scoping rules.

I'm not interested in trading one set of bad language decisions 
for another. Can someone fix this?