Quote 1: Avoid creating unnecessary objects and always prefer to do Lazy Initial ization Object creation in Java is one

of the most expensive operation in terms of memor y utilization and performance impact. It is thus advisable to create or initiali ze an object only when it is required in the code. public class Countries { private List countries; public List getCountries() { //initialize only when required if(null == countries) { countries = new ArrayList(); } return countries; } } Quote 2: Never make an instance fields of class public Making a class field public can cause lot of issues in a program. For instance y ou may have a class called MyCalender. This class contains an array of String we ekdays. You may have assume that this array will always contain 7 names of weekd ays. But as this array is public, it may be accessed by anyone. Someone by mista ke also may change the value and insert a bug! public class MyCalender { public String[] weekdays = {"Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat", "Sun"}; //some code } Best approach as many of you already know is to always make the field private an d add a getter method to access the elements. private String[] weekdays = {"Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat", "Sun"}; public String[] getWeekdays() { return weekdays; } But writing getter method does not exactly solve our problem. The array is still accessible. Best way to make it unmodifiable is to return a clone of array inst ead of array itself. Thus the getter method will be changed to. public String[] getWeekdays() { return weekdays.clone(); } Quote 3: Always try to minimize Mutability of a class Making a class immutable is to make it unmodifiable. The information the class p reserve will stay as it is through out the lifetime of the class. Immutable clas ses are simple, they are easy to manage. They are thread safe. They makes great building blocks for other objects. However creating immutable objects can hit performance of an app. So always choo

se wisely if you want your class to be immutable or not. Always try to make a sm all class with less fields immutable. To make a class immutable you can define its all constructors private and then c reate a public static method to initialize and object and return it. public class Employee { private String firstName; private String lastName; //private default constructor private Employee(String firstName, String lastName) { this.firstName = firstName; this.lastName = lastName; } public static Employee valueOf (String firstName, String lastName) { return new Employee(firstName, lastName); } } Quote 4: Try to prefer Interfaces instead of Abstract classes First you can ents multiple ing class and hierarchy of not inherit multiple classes in Java but you can definitely implem interfaces. Its very easy to change the implementation of an exist add implementation of one more interface rather then changing full class.

Again if you are 100% sure what methods an interface will have, then only start coding that interface. As it is very difficult to add a new method in an existin g interface without breaking the code that has already implemented it. On contra ry a new method can be easily added in Abstract class without breaking existing functionality. Quote 5: Always try to limit the scope of Local variable Local variables are great. But sometimes we may insert some bugs due to copy pas te of old code. Minimizing the scope of a local variable makes code more readabl e, less error prone and also improves the maintainability of the code. Thus, declare a variable only when needed just before its use. Always initialize a local variable upon its declaration. If not possible at leas t make the local instance assigned null value. Quote 6: Try to use standard library instead of writing your own from scratch Writing code is fun. But do not reinvent the wheel . It is very advisable to use an existing standard library which is already tested, debugged and used by others. This not only improves the efficiency of programmer but also reduces chances of adding new bugs in your code. Also using a standard library makes code readable and maintainable. For instance Google has just released a new library Google Collections that can be used if you want to add advance collection functionality in your code. Quote 7: Wherever possible try to use Primitive types instead of Wrapper classes Wrapper classes are great. But at same time they are slow. Primitive types are j

ust values, whereas Wrapper classes are stores information about complete class. Sometimes a programmer may add bug in the code by using wrapper due to oversight . For example, in below example: int x = 10; int y = 10; Integer x1 = new Integer(10); Integer y1 = new Integer(10); System.out.println(x == y); System.out.println(x1 == y1); The first sop will print true whereas the second one will print false. The probl em is when comparing two wrapper class objects we cant use == operator. It will compare the reference of object and not its actual value. Also if you are using a wrapper class object then never forget to initialize it to a default value. As by default all wrapper class objects are initialized to n ull. Boolean flag; if(flag == true) { System.out.println("Flag is set"); } else { System.out.println("Flag is not set"); } The above code will give a NullPointerException as it tries to box the values be fore comparing with true and as its null. Quote 8: Use Strings with utmost care. Always carefully use Strings in your code. A simple concatenation of strings can reduce performance of program. For example if we concatenate strings using + op erator in a for loop then everytime + is used, it creates a new String object. T his will affect both memory usage and performance time. Also whenever you want to instantiate a String object, never use its constructor but always instantiate it directly. For example: //slow instantiation String slow = new String("Yet another string object"); //fast instantiation String fast = "Yet another string object"; Quote 9: Always return empty Collections and Arrays instead of null Whenever your method is returning a collection element or an array, always make sure you return empty array/collection and not null. This will save a lot of if else testing for null elements. For instance in below example we have a getter m ethod that returns employee name. If the name is null it simply return blank str ing . public String getEmployeeName() { return (null==employeeName ? "": employeeName); } Quote 10: Defensive copies are savior Defensive copies are the clone objects created to avoid mutation of an object. F

or example in below code we have defined a Student class which has a private fie ld birth date that is initialized when the object is constructed. public class Student { private Date birthDate; public Student(birthDate) { this.birthDate = birthDate; } public Date getBirthDate() { return this.birthDate; } } Now we may have some other code that uses the Student object. public static void main(String []arg) { Date birthDate = new Date(); Student student = new Student(birthDate); birthDate.setYear(2019); System.out.println(student.getBirthDate()); } In above code we just created a Student object with some default birthdate. But then we changed the value of year of the birthdate. Thus when we print the birth date, its year was changed to 2019! To avoid such cases, we can use Defensive copies mechanism. Change the construct or of Student class to following. public Student(birthDate) { this.birthDate = new Date(birthDate); } This ensure we have another copy of birthdate that we use in Student class. Two bonus quotes Here are two bonus Java best practice quotes for you. Quote 11: Never let exception come out of finally block Finally blocks should never have code that throws exception. Always make sure fi nally clause does not throw exception. If you have some code in finally block th at does throw exception, then log the exception properly and never let it come o ut :) Quote 12: Never throw Exception Never throw java.lang.Exception directly. It defeats the purpose of using checke d Exceptions. Also there is no useful information getting conveyed in caller met hod. More Quotes from Java Developers Do you have a quote that is not included in above list? Well, feel free to add y our Java best practice quote using comment below. Write your quote and explain i t in 2-3 lines. I will add all those user generated quotes in this section.

Quote #13: Avoid floating point numbers It is a bad idea to use floating point to try to represent exact quantities like monetary amounts. Using floating point for dollars-and-cents calculations is a recipe for disaster. Floating point numbers are best reserved for values such as measurements, whose values are fundamentally inexact to begin with. For calcula tions of monetary amounts it is better to use BigDecimal.