On 8/14/2012 8:23 AM, Timothy Madden wrote:
Hello
Is it just me or people tend to enumerate all the needed classes for a
Java source file each in its own import line ?
Why is it better to use:
import java.io.IOException
import java.io.FileNotFoundException
import java.io.FileOutputStream
import ...
instead of just:
import java.io.*
?
Which, by the way, also needs no maintenance in case a new class or
exception is needed in the file at a later time.
On the other hand, it *will* need maintenance if the next
Java release adds a java.io.Wotsit class, and your file already
has its own Wotsit. Import them one by one and the new Wotsit
won't clash with yours; import them en masse and it will.
The rest of the answer, I think, is that Somebody Somewhere
decided that it was "better style" to import individually than
by wildcard, and SS' opinion got codified into the out-of-the-box
settings for tools like Eclipse and NetBeans. Bowing to SS' ideas,
these tools complain about wildcard imports, while at the same time
making it easy to generate the individual imports. Most people
don't tinker much with the out-of-the-box settings, so the code they
create with these IDE's follow that style.
I don't think the out-of-box settings in e.g. Eclipse should drive
actual programming style. A programmer who prefers wildcard imports