Java Style and Coding Guidelines
Creating fast, maintainable, reliable, portable Java programs.
These were developed for Visa International. This ended up as almost a 200-page
book covering many aspects of Java programming. Having a consistent set of
style guidelines is crucial if you have a team of programmers.
Objectives
This book is intended to help you write fast, portable, reliable Java software
which can be practically maintained
through the complete software lifecycle. Some of these guidelines apply to
writing software using other languages, but
the focus of this book is on Java programming, not general software engineering
practices. Most rules are therefore
Java-specific.
This book provides guidelines for how to organize and manage the creation
and delivery of large, enterprise application
systems. In today's fast-moving world, you are not generally writing code
for yourself. Your code will likely be
maintained by others, and will likely be used and reused long after you've
moved on to other projects. Thus, you
should assume you're writing every line of code for strangers.
Many organizations choose Java because of its "write once, run anywhere"
promise, but are frustrated by platform
incompatibilities and poor performance. This book will provide rules and
techniques for successfully creating Javabased
solutions which are both portable and fast.
Who Should Read This Book?
This book is intended primarily for software developers who are, or will
be, writing complex software in Java. Many of
the guidelines will also apply to designers and architects who must choose
class and method names. This is not a book
for dilettantes or Dilbert-style managers - it will just scare them. This
is a book for people who write code.
Read the guidelines