Coding standards
In the text of this book, identifiers (method, variable, and class names) are set in bold. Most keywords are also set in bold, except for those keywords that are used so much that the bolding can become tedious, such as “class.”
I use a particular coding style for the examples in this book. This style follows the style that Sun itself uses in virtually all of the code you will find at its site (see java.sun.com/docs/codeconv/index.html), and seems to be supported by most Java development environments. If you’ve read my other works, you’ll also notice that Sun’s coding style coincides with mine—this pleases me, although I had nothing to do with it. The subject of formatting style is good for hours of hot debate, so I’ll just say I’m not trying to dictate correct style via my examples; I have my own motivation for using the style that I do. Because Java is a free-form programming language, you can continue to use whatever style you’re comfortable with.
The programs in this book are files that are included by the word processor in the text, directly from compiled files. Thus, the code files printed in the book should all work without compiler errors. The errors that should cause compile-time error messages are commented out with the comment //! so they can be easily discovered and tested using automatic means. Errors discovered and reported to the author will appear first in the distributed source code and later in updates of the book (which will also appear on the Web site www.BruceEckel.com).
