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From: Lew <noone@lewscanon.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject: Re: Swing is dead!  Long live Swing.
Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00:23 -0800
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Wanja Gayk wrote:
> markspace wrote:
>> ...  For situations where I might be tempted to just use strings,
>> I try to substitute enums.  For example, instead of
>>
>>    bind( someComponent, "event-name" );
>>
>> I'd use this:
>>
>>    bind( someComponent, Events.NAME );
>>
>> It provides automatic syntax checking, and is much easier to refactor if
>> names need to be changed or moved around later.
>>
>> Any thoughts on this idea?
>
> I think the same way.
> I'm even going further and strongly propose preferring Enums to boolean
> parameters and this is why:
> http://brixomatic.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/boolean-harmful/

+1

This might irritate those who already find Java verbose, since 'String's are 
more compact to declare, but type safety and refactorability [sic] is a payoff 
in many situations.

I'm even worse, because I pump a "friendly" string representation into the enum.
<http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Enum.html#toString()>
«An enum type should override this method when a more "programmer-friendly" 
string form exists.»

Necessitating a corresponding 'public static E fromString(String rep)'.

'fromString()' compares 'toString()' strings first; if those fail it delegates 
to 'valueOf()'.

<sscce source="eegee/Essential.java">
package eegee;
/**
  * Essential {@code enum} implementation with "friendly" representation.
  */
public enum Essential
{
   FOO("foo"),
   BAR("bar"),
   FANCY("fancy form"),
   ANOMALY("useful to hold log or error messages"),
   ;
   private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

   private final String representation;

   /**
     * Constructor setting the friendly representation.
     * @param rep String friendly representation of constant.
     */
   private Essential(String rep)
   {
     this.representation = rep;
     assert this.representation != null;
   }

   @Override
   public final String toString()
   {
     return representation;
   }

   /**
     * Look up enum constant from String representation.
     * @param rep String representation of enum constant.
     * @return Essential constant matching the representation.
     */
   public static Essential fromString(String rep)
   {
     if (rep == null)
     {
       return null;
     }
     for (Essential value : values())
     {
       if (rep.equals(value.toString()))
       {
         return value;
       }
     }
     return valueOf(rep);
   }
}
</sscce>

-- 
Lew
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Friz.jpg