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The Java Interview Handbook: 300+ Interview Questions

General Best Practices

Explore essential Java best practices to improve your coding skills. Understand how to minimize variable scope, initialize variables properly, design small focused methods, prefer interfaces, and use efficient string handling. This lesson helps you write more maintainable and performant Java code.

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General Best Practices

  1. Strive to minimize the scope of a local variable The best way for minimizing the scope of a local variable is to declare it where it is first used.

    Bad Practice

            // Variable not used immediately but declared
        Random random = new Random(System.currentTimeMillis());

        for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
            // ... for body
        }

        for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
            // ... for body
        }

        // ... more processing
        // .
        // .
        // .
        // ...

        if (random.nextBoolean()) {
            // ... if body
        }

    ## Better Practice 
            for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
            // ... for body
        }

        for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
            // ... for body
        }

        // ... more processing
        // .
        // .
        // .
        // ...
       
        // Variable declared closer to where it gets used
        Random random = new Random(System.currentTimeMillis());
        if (random.nextBoolean()) {
            // ... if body
        }

  2. Initialize every local variable when it is being declared. If you don’t yet have enough information to initialize a variable sensibly, postpone declaring it. One exception to this rule can ...