Format the code

PACKT recently published the book Mastering Java 9 that I co-authored. The author who started to write the book could not finish, and PACKT had to find people who agreed to write some of the chapters. I previously successfully finished Programming Java 9 by Example and PACKT asked me if I could help. Finally, we wrote the book with Dr. Edward Lavieri.

To my surprise, he used C# bracket placing in the book. That is, the { character is placed not on the end of the line but rather at the start of the next line.

if( myCondition )
{
  do something;
}

This is against the usual Java coding convention.

When I started programming C in 1984 I started to use this bracket placement. That time Internet was not reachable and there were no tools to share opinions in such a wide audience like now. It was also not clear how much formatting means when we are coding. What is more, it was not even clear how much readability is important.

Later I learned that the convention in case of C programming usually is to put the { character at the end of the line.

if( myCondition ){
  do something;
  }

In case of C, it is not always the case. Some programmer teams use the first bracket placement, while others use the later.

In case of Java, the C# style bracket placement is almost extinct. Perhaps it would be interesting to see a statistics over the sources available on GitHub to see how big percent of the Java code uses this or that.

Why is it interesting? Because

You should not use C# formatting when you program Java code!

There are exceptions as always. For example, the company you work for insists on the other coding style. In that case, the company made the bad decision and although it may be okay or even great working for this company, this is certainly a company smell. (See code smell.)

Why should not you use the other style?

Because of readability. Readability is subjective and still, in this case, I dare say that the Java style bracket placement is more readable. Hold your horses before ranting, I will explain.

Что было раньше, курица или яйцо?

For most of you, the above sentence is not readable. I can read it because I grew up in eastern Europe where learning Russian was mandatory. It is also readable for most of the Russian people. They can not only read it, but they can even understand it. For them, it is just as readable as the English sentence

What was sooner, the chicken or the egg?

for us.

Readablility depends on what we got used to. Java programmers got used to

                      {
  }

bracket placement. C# programmers use the other style. If we see a code that is formatted differently you may oversee some aspect of the code that you would not skip otherwise. The difference is subtle but still it is there. When you hire Java developers you are more likely to find good Java developers for a reasonable price who use and who are accustomed to the industry standard than one who is accustomed to the C# style.

You can find here and there some who are also fluent in C# as well and can read Cyrillic… ops… C# “characters” but it is less common than pure Java developers.

The bottom line is that the TCO of the code will be lower during the lifetime of code development and maintenance if you follow the industry standards. It is that simple.

P.S.: Buy the books!