The ‘final’ Verdict…

After receiving 14 responses to final, final, final: Your Thoughts?, I have decided I am comfortable with my current coding style and will *not* start declaring method parameters and local variables final.

For Example

Some people were just plain confused by the question. I was talking about method parameters and local variables:

public class Dog {
  public void speak(final String command) {
    ...
    final int someLocalVar = 12;
    ...
  }
}

I was clearly not (well, I thought it was clear) talking about final fields or methods, which are not open for debate because they have very specific cases where they are needed:

public class Cat {
  private final String name;

  ...

  public final void doSomething() {
    ...
  }
}

I use final fields frequently, in particular for thread safety reasons. I use final methods to prevent overriding. These are not coding convention or style issues. They are simply features you sometimes need.

Back to the Original Question

Among people who understood the question, the general — although not unanimous — consensus is that final adds more noise than benefit. I tend to agree. I think this code is more readable:

public class Dog {
  public void speak(String command) {
    ...
    int someLocalVar = 12;
    ...
  }
}

That’s what I’ll keep on doing.

Posted on Saturday, November 17th, 2007 at 9:14 am in Java.