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Development Ideology

Truths which we believe to be self-evident (adapted from TextSecure’s)

  1. The answer is not more options. If you feel compelled to add a preference that’s exposed to the user, it’s very possible you’ve made a wrong turn somewhere.

  2. There are no power users. The idea that some users "understand" concepts better than others has proven to be, for the post part, false. If anything, "power users" are more dangerous than the test, and we should avoid exposing dangerous functionality to them.

  3. If it’s "like PGP," it’s wrong. PGP is our guide for what not to do.

  4. It’s an asynchronous world. We wary of anything that is anti-asynchronous: ACKs, protocol confirmations, or any protocol-level "advisory" message.

  5. There is no such thing as time. Protocol ideas that require synchronized clocks are doomed to failure.

Code Style Guidelines

Resulting from long experience

  • To the largest extent possible, all fields shall be private. Use an IDE to generate the getters and setters.

  • If a class has more than one volatile member field, it is probable that there are subtle race conditions. Please consider where appropriate encapsulation of the multiple fields into an immutable value object replace the multiple volatile member fields with a single volatile reference to the value object (or perhaps better yet an AtomicReference to allow for compareAndSet - if compare-and-set logic is appropriate).

  • If it is Serializable it shall have a serialVersionUID field. Unless code has shipped to users, the initial value of the serialVersionUID field shall be 1L.

Indentation

  1. Use spaces. Tabs are banned.

  2. Java blocks are 4 spaces. JavaScript blocks as for Java. XML nesting is 2 spaces

Field Naming Conventions

  1. "hungarian"-style notation is banned (i.e. instance variable names preceded by an 'm', etc)

  2. If the field is static final then it shall be named in ALL_CAPS_WITH_UNDERSCORES.

  3. Start variable names with a lowercase letter and use camelCase rather than under_scores.

  4. Spelling and abbreviations: If the word is widely used in the JVM runtime, stick with the spelling/abbreviation in the JVM runtime, e.g. color over colour, sync over synch, async over asynch, etc.

  5. It is acceptable to use i, j, k for loop indices and iterators. If you need more than three, you are likely doing something wrong and as such you shall either use full descriptive names or refactor.

  6. It is acceptable to use e for the exception in a try…​catch block.

  7. You shall never use l (i.e. lower case L) as a variable name.

Line Length

To the greatest extent possible, please wrap lines to ensure that they do not exceed 120 characters.

Maven POM file layout

  • The pom.xml file shall use the sequencing of elements as defined by the mvn tidy:pom command (after any indenting fix-up).

  • If you are introducing a property to the pom.xml the property must be used in at least two distinct places in the model or a comment justifying the use of a property shall be provided.

  • If the <plugin> is in the groupId org.apache.maven.plugins you shall omit the <groupId>.

  • All <plugin> entries shall have an explicit version defined unless inherited from the parent.

Java code style

Modifiers

  • For fields, the order is:

    1. public / protected / private

    2. static

    3. final

    4. transient

    5. volatile

  • For methods, the order is:

    1. public / protected / private

    2. abstract

    3. static

    4. final

    5. synchronized

    6. native

    7. strictfp

  • For classes, the order is:

    1. public / protected / private

    2. abstract

    3. static

    4. final

    5. strictfp

Imports

  • For code in src/main:

    1. * imports are banned.

    2. static imports are strongly discouraged.

    3. static * imports are discouraged unless code readability is significantly enhanced and the import is restricted to a single class.

  • For code in src/test:

    1. * imports of anything other than JUnit classes and Hamcrest matchers are banned.

    2. static imports of anything other than JUnit classes and Hamcrest matchers are strongly discouraged.

    3. import static org.hamcrest.Matchers., import static org.junit.Assert., import static org.junit.Assume. are expressly encouraged and permitted. Any other static imports are discouraged unless code readability is significantly enhanced and the import is restricted to a single class.

Annotation placement

  • Annotations on classes, interfaces, annotations, enums, methods, fields and local variables shall be on the lines immediately preceding the line where modifier(s) (e.g. public / protected / private / final, etc) would be appropriate.

  • Annotations on method arguments shall, to the largest extent possible, be on the same line as the method argument (and, if present, before the final modifier)

Javadoc

  • Each class shall have a Javadoc comment.

  • Each field shall have a Javadoc comment.

  • Unless the method is private, it shall have a Javadoc comment.

  • When a method is overriding a method from a super-class / interface, unless the semantics of the method have changed it is sufficient to document the intent of implementing the super-method’s contract with:

    /**
 * {@inheritDoc}
 */
@Override

  • Getters and Setters shall have a Javadoc comment. The following is preferred

    /**
 * The count of widgets
 */
private int widgetCount;

/**
 * Returns the count of widgets.
 *
 * @return the count of widgets.
 */
public int getWidgetCount() {
    return widgetCount;
}

/**
 * Sets the count of widgets.
 *
 * @param widgetCount the count of widgets.
 */
public void setWidgetCount(int widgetCount) {
    this.widgetCount = widgetCount;
}

  • When adding a new class / interface / etc, it shall have a @since doc comment. The version shall be FIXME to indicate that the person merging the change should replace the FIXME with the next release version number. The fields and methods within a class/interface (but not nested classes) will be assumed to have the @since annotation of their class/interface unless a different @since annotation is present.

IDE Configuration

  • Eclipse, by and large the IDE defaults are acceptable with the following changes:

    • Tab policy to Spaces only

    • Indent statements within switch body

    • Maximum line width 120

    • Line wrapping, ensure all to wrap where necessary

    • Organize imports alphabetically, no grouping

  • NetBeans, by and large the IDE defaults are acceptable with the following changes:

    • Tabs and Indents

      • Change Right Margin to 120

      • Indent case statements in switch

    • Wrapping

      • Change all the Never values to If Long

      • Select the checkbox for Wrap After Assignment Operators

  • IntelliJ, by and large the IDE defaults are acceptable with the following changes:

    • Wrapping and Braces

      • Change Do not wrap to Wrap if long

      • Change Do not force to Always

    • Javadoc

      • Disable generating <p/> on empty lines

    • Imports

      • Class count to use import with '*': 9999

      • Names count to use static import with '*': 99999

      • Import Layout

        • import all other imports

        • blank line

        • import static all other imports