Java: Best Practices for Writing Clean and Professional Code

Secrets of Clean Code: A Journey through Java Best Practices for Ongoing Coding Mastery

Writing professional and clean Java code is essential for any Java developer who wants to unleash the full potential of their software.

I’ll be discussing seemingly small details, yet they hold tremendous importance and have the potential to transform you into a highly efficient engineer.

1. Avoid Magic Numbers and Use Constants

Using magic numbers (hard-coded numeric literals) makes the code less readable and harder to maintain. Magic numbers make it difficult to understand the purpose and significance of the values, leading to potential bugs when the values need to be changed or reused.

Constants provide meaningful names and improve code clarity.

So, instead of

// Bad example: Magic number used directly in the code
if (score >= 70) {
    System.out.println("Pass");
}

Write code such as

// Good example: Constants used for better readability
final int PASS_THRESHOLD = 70;
if (score >= PASS_THRESHOLD) {
    System.out.println("Pass");
}

2. Avoid Deep Nesting and Use Early Returns