Java Code Conventions

1 - Introduction

1.1 Why Have Code Conventions

Code conventions are important to programmers for a number of reasons:

• 80% of the lifetime cost of a piece of software goes to maintenance.
• Hardly any software is maintained for its whole life by the original author.
• Code conventions improve the readability of the software, allowing engineers to understand new code more quickly and thoroughly.
• If you ship your source code as a product, you need to make sure it is as well packaged and clean as any other product you create.

For the conventions to work, every person writing software must conform to the code conventions. Everyone.

1.2 Acknowledgments

This document is based on the C++ Programming Style document from the DOE project, which is based on C Style and Coding Standards at Sun. Major contributions are from Peter King, Patrick Naughton, Mike DeMoney, and Jonni Kanerva.

This published edition is excerpted from the internal document Javasoft Coding Conventions from Javasoft.