Appendix A. Coding Conventions

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This appendix covers various aspects of programming style and coding conventions. It follows the conventions suggested in the Java Language Specification (http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/), which is summarized on Sun's Java Web site (http://java.sun.com/docs/). The conventions have been modified somewhat to fit the needs of an academic programming course. For further details, see:

http://java.sun.com/docs/codeconv/index.html

Coding conventions improve the readability and maintainability of the code. Because maintenance is often done by programmers who did not have a hand in designing or writing the original code, it is important that the code follow certain conventions. For a typical piece of commercial software, much more time and expense are invested in maintaining the code than in creating the code.