James Thigpen

I will now right the same self-righteous diatriabe about Java coding conventions that every other coder on Earth has written.

These are specific to Java, I firmly believe in modifying my coding style to fit a language.

Step 1: Class Naming

I just saw an java class named Active_object. I’m not even kidding. It was like being stabbed in the eyes. Underscores do not belong in Java. It’s that simple.

Secondly, it wasn’t even Active_Object. Proper naming: ActiveObject.

Step 2: Braces

Everyone has their braces style. Stricly speaking I should be using the Java convention, but I hate the java convention. I can never find the opening brace, so I do this:

public void method()
{
System.out.println("Donkey");
}

never do I do this:

public void method() {
System.out.println("Donkey");
}

because to me, it looks so ugly. Ugh. Of course I’m scarred by 2 years of working in the deepest inner bowels of an interpreter written for a functional programming language written in C. *shivers*

Step 3: Variable Naming

Variable names are not places in which to store metadata. Examples: mField, bConnected. Ow.

The “no underscores” argument applies here as well. properlyNamedVariable not improperly_named_variable.

Step 4: Conclusion

“Coding styles are like !#*holes, everybody has one, but nobody wants to touch anybody elses.”