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The ACCU passes on review copies of computer books to its members for them to review. The result is a large, high quality collection of book reviews by programmers, for programmers. Currently there are 1949 reviews in the database and more every month.
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Title:
The Elements of Java Style
Author:
Various
ISBN:
0 521 77768 2
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Pages:
128pp
Price:
£8-95
Reviewer:
Francis Glassborow
Subject:
java
Appeared in:
12-3
This is a very small format book (each page is about a third of the area of a page of A4 (Overload, new format C Vu). The main text takes 93 pages. That is followed by eight pages listing the 108 style guidelines that the main text covered in more detail, and then there is a glossary and index. Almost half the entries in the index refer to the glossary.

None of the above would matter if the guidelines sparkled. However just let me take one at random.

62 Explain local variable declarations with an end-line comment.Not exactly innovative stuff. Then two guidelines on, I find:

64 Label closing braces in highly nested control structuresWell if you are going to nest them deeply, I suppose it makes sense to label them. However, I think a much better guideline would be 'Avoid nesting control structures.' Any experienced programmer will tell you that nesting control structures is a recipe for buggy code.

I think that is enough. Keep your money, if this book tells you anything you do not already know then you need it to invest in learning to program.