Using final as a Coding Standard

I imagine that many of you never thought you would see an entire chapter written on a single keyword. However, this particular keyword is quite useful. I strongly advise that you spread final all over your code. You should use it so much that not seeing it becomes a rare, if not completely unknown, occurrence. This coding standard may take a little getting used to but it will really pay off in the long term. The best way to get started is to force yourself to use final heavily whenever you write or edit code. Also, you should force the junior developers working for you to adopt the use of final as a coding standard. They may grumble and balk for a bit, but the coding standard will quickly become so automatic that the developers won't consciously think about it. Like good Javadoc habits, this one is much easier to implement if you do it while you are coding. Having to go back through old code to implement the standard is a real pain. For this reason, I suggest you make it a coding standard starting today. If you have tools that allow you to edit the code templates, edit them to introduce final everywhere you can. Also, when you edit someone else's code, introduce the final variable liberally. Doing so helps to guarantee that no one can mess up your code without actually trying to do so.