Java best practices summary

This document is an extension of the Software engineering best practices summary, dedicated to Java-specific issues.

Dates

• Use the LocalDateTime API (LocalDate, LocalTime, LocalDateTime, etc.) instead of other solutions (like JodaTime)

Lambdas and Streams

• Wherever it makes sense, use Java 8’s streams – they are usually more readable than classic for-loops
• Every function call after .stream() should start from a new line
• If an anonymous function has more than one line, consider extracting it into a separate method
• Use method references instead of lambdas if doing so will make the code shorter and more readable; Wherever using a method reference would make the code longer and less readable, use lambdas
  • Read more:
    Bloch, J. (2018). Effective Java. (Chapter 7, Topic 43)

Optionals

• Prefer .orElse() instead of .isPresent()