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Groups > comp.lang.java.programmer > #7414

Re: Style Police (a rant)

From Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li>
Newsgroups comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject Re: Style Police (a rant)
Date 2011-08-27 14:00 +0100
Organization Eindhoven University of Technology
Message-ID <alpine.DEB.2.00.1108271350130.2202@urchin.earth.li> (permalink)
References <j39fdc$1hi$1@dont-email.me>

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On Fri, 26 Aug 2011, Eric Sosman wrote:

>    In recent days I've encountered a tool called "Checkstyle," that
> parses Java code and flags various departures from its baked-in rules.

You mean the rules you configure? Or by 'baked-in' do you mean the default 
rule set?

I assume you are not making the mistake of assuming that Checkstyle's rule 
set is not configurable.

> Some of these are worthwhile [...] Some are less so

That has been our experience with it too. When we added it to our 
integration build process, one of our guys had to spend quite a while 
grubbing through the rules chucking out those we didn't subscribe to. We 
also planned to revise the rule set as time went by and we found more 
problems with it, although in practice we haven't had to do that much.

We also run PMD in the build process, similarly tuned:

http://pmd.sourceforge.net/

We have Checkstyle set up to primarily check non-functional style rules 
(formatting, variable naming, and so on), and PMD to look for potential 
bugs, because it's better at it.

Note that the authors of PMD have the good grace to recognise that some of 
the rules they include are controversial:

http://pmd.sourceforge.net/rules/controversial.html

>    But the subject of this rant is its complaint that a class is "not 
> designed for extension."  You write a perfectly ordinary class with 
> methods foo() and bar(), and Checkstyle throws up its hands and gibbers 
> that your class is "not designed for extension."  Say, what?

I know what this rule is getting at. Hopefully Lew will chime in at some 
point soon and explain it.

>   I wonder what this Checkstyle tool would think of the concrete, 
> non-final, non-empty equals(), hashCode(), clone(), toString(), and 
> finalize() methods of ... java.lang.Object, the one class *no* Java 
> program can avoid extending.  If java.lang.Object is "not designed for 
> extension," is there any hope left for the language?

Well put!

tom

-- 
My dad gave to me a MSX and magazines to read and type programs, mostly
adventure games. I falling in love to the letter soap. -- clrod

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Thread

Style Police (a rant) Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-08-26 20:56 -0400
  Re: Style Police (a rant) Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2011-08-27 09:58 +0200
  Re: Style Police (a rant) Rajiv Gupta <rajiv@invalid.com> - 2011-08-27 18:02 +1000
    Re: Style Police (a rant) v_borchert@despammed.com (Volker Borchert) - 2011-08-27 08:40 +0000
  Re: Style Police (a rant) Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2011-08-27 13:27 +0200
    Re: Style Police (a rant) Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2011-08-27 13:33 +0200
      Re: Style Police (a rant) Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-08-27 11:08 -0400
      Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-08-27 08:34 -0700
        Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-08-27 08:37 -0700
        Re: Style Police (a rant) Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2011-08-27 17:59 +0200
          Re: Style Police (a rant) Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2011-08-27 18:06 +0200
            Re: Style Police (a rant) Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2011-08-27 18:08 +0200
            Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-08-27 09:50 -0700
              Re: Style Police (a rant) Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2011-08-27 19:15 +0200
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-08-27 13:09 -0700
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2011-08-27 23:18 +0200
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-08-27 16:10 -0700
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2011-08-28 01:59 +0200
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-08-27 18:59 -0700
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2011-08-28 15:32 +0200
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-08-28 13:09 -0700
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2011-08-29 04:02 +0200
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-08-28 19:20 -0700
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2011-08-29 09:44 +0200
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-08-29 08:30 -0700
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-08-29 16:37 +0000
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-08-29 12:10 -0700
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2011-08-29 18:21 +0200
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2011-08-29 04:06 +0200
    Re: Style Police (a rant) Wanja Gayk <brixomatic@yahoo.com> - 2011-09-10 06:45 +0200
      Re: Style Police (a rant) Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-09-10 11:40 +0000
        Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-09-10 14:06 -0700
          Re: Style Police (a rant) Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-09-11 14:07 +0000
            Re: Style Police (a rant) Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-09-11 10:55 -0400
              Re: Style Police (a rant) Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-09-11 23:34 +0000
            Re: Style Police (a rant) Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-09-11 10:58 -0400
              Re: Style Police (a rant) Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2011-09-11 10:12 -0700
            Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-09-11 09:47 -0700
              Re: Style Police (a rant) Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-09-11 23:32 +0000
            Re: Style Police (a rant) Wanja Gayk <brixomatic@yahoo.com> - 2011-09-11 21:20 +0200
              Re: Style Police (a rant) Cthun <cthun_117@qmail.net.au> - 2011-09-11 17:11 -0400
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Wanja Gayk <brixomatic@yahoo.com> - 2011-09-12 01:22 +0200
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-09-11 21:13 -0400
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Retahiv Oopsiscame <roopsisc@gmail.com> - 2011-09-11 16:54 -0700
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Cthun <cthun_117@qmail.net.au> - 2011-09-11 23:42 -0400
                Re: Style Police (a rant) "Cthun" <cthun_117@qmail.net.au> - 2011-09-12 04:56 -0400
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Cthun <cthun_117@qmail.net.au> - 2011-09-12 05:12 -0400
                Re: Style Police (a rant) "Cthun" <cthun_117@qmail.net.au> - 2011-09-12 04:59 -0400
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Cthun <cthun_117@qmail.net.au> - 2011-09-12 05:13 -0400
              Re: Style Police (a rant) Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-09-11 23:17 +0000
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-09-11 21:12 -0400
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-09-12 07:36 -0300
              Re: Style Police (a rant) "Cthun" <cthun_117@qmail.net.au> - 2011-09-12 04:58 -0400
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Cthun <cthun_117@qmail.net.au> - 2011-09-12 05:12 -0400
        Re: Style Police (a rant) Wanja Gayk <brixomatic@yahoo.com> - 2011-09-11 15:33 +0200
          Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-09-11 09:42 -0700
            Re: Style Police (a rant) Lars Enderin <lars.enderin@telia.com> - 2011-09-11 20:35 +0200
              Re: Style Police (a rant) Retahiv Oopsiscame <roopsisc@gmail.com> - 2011-09-11 16:55 -0700
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-09-11 20:36 -0700
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Lars Enderin <lars.enderin@telia.com> - 2011-09-12 10:05 +0200
                Re: Style Police (a rant) "Cthun" <cthun_117@qmail.net.au> - 2011-09-12 04:52 -0400
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Cthun <cthun_117@qmail.net.au> - 2011-09-12 05:14 -0400
                Re: Style Police (a rant) "Cthun" <cthun_117@qmail.net.au> - 2011-09-12 06:42 -0400
                Re: Style Police (a rant) Cthun <cthun_117@qmail.net.au> - 2011-09-12 07:20 -0400
                Re: Style Police (a rant) "Cthun" <cthun_117@qmail.net.au> - 2011-09-12 08:46 -0400
              Re: Style Police (a rant) Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-09-12 20:18 +0100
            Re: Style Police (a rant) Wanja Gayk <brixomatic@yahoo.com> - 2011-09-11 21:20 +0200
              Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-09-11 13:52 -0700
          Re: Style Police (a rant) Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-09-12 00:17 +0000
      Re: Style Police (a rant) Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-09-10 21:32 -0400
        Re: Style Police (a rant) Wanja Gayk <brixomatic@yahoo.com> - 2011-09-11 13:27 +0200
          Re: Style Police (a rant) Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-09-11 11:05 -0400
        Re: Style Police (a rant) Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-09-11 13:23 +0000
          Re: Style Police (a rant) Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-09-11 10:04 -0400
            Re: Style Police (a rant) Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-09-11 12:45 -0300
              Re: Style Police (a rant) Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-09-11 16:53 -0400
          Re: Style Police (a rant) Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-09-11 10:59 -0400
            Re: Style Police (a rant) Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-09-11 21:25 +0000
  Re: Style Police (a rant) Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-08-27 14:00 +0100
    Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-08-27 08:42 -0700
    Re: Style Police (a rant) Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-08-27 11:58 -0400
  Re: Style Police (a rant) "John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2011-08-28 08:21 -0400
    Re: Style Police (a rant) Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-08-28 18:07 -0300
  Re: Style Police (a rant) Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-08-29 04:20 -0700
  Re: Style Police (a rant) Tim Slattery <Slattery_T@bls.gov> - 2011-08-29 09:11 -0400
    Re: Style Police (a rant) Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-08-29 20:50 -0400
      Re: Style Police (a rant) Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-08-30 11:27 +0000
        Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-08-30 09:36 -0700
          Re: Style Police (a rant) Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-08-30 17:51 +0000
      Re: Style Police (a rant) Tim Slattery <Slattery_T@bls.gov> - 2011-08-30 08:51 -0400
      Re: Style Police (a rant) Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2011-08-30 09:04 -0700
        Re: Style Police (a rant) Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-08-30 09:43 -0700
          Re: Style Police (a rant) Daniele Futtorovic <da.futt.news@laposte-dot-net.invalid> - 2011-08-31 00:31 +0200

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