Good coding practices I use

1. Write flexible code that can be changed and extended, changes in underlying technologies shouldn't ripple through the whole system


2. Code should be maintainability – long shelf life


3. Layers should not be tightly coupled. Each layer needs to be independent from the other. Use interfaces, dependency injection etc


4. Indent all files using spaces (Indent once = 4 spaces)


5. If you are using an IDE, use the formatter and tools that comes with it to organize and clean up your code


6. Comment your code often. Use Javadoc standards.


7. Use sensible naming conventions for variable, method and class names.


8. Use exceptions only if required. Do not use exceptions to handle errors. If errors occur we want the message to propagated up the call stack.


9. Do not use scriplets in your JSP code. Use JSTL Expression Languages where required.


10. All jsp file names should be in lowercase


11. All text in JSP's should either come from Database or Resource bundles. No text should be hard coded in HTML


12. HTML pages should be XHTML Transitional


13. Validate your HTML pages using w3c validators


14. All styles should be written in css. No HTML style attributes


15. If your code causes warnings or errors in other code, fix other code as well. There shouldn't be any code in CVS which has errors or warnings.