Christ Centered Gamer

Generally speaking, your best bet for creating your own applications would be to have a portfolio to show potential employers. I occasionally conduct job interviews for developers for my team and I warn you that a portfolio is a double edged sword. If you can show some awesome, you'll be awesome. If it shows poor code practices... you're sunk.

So if you're making an app to show off your skills, here's some tips from someone who is very strict about code quality on my team and who conducts interviews:

• Avoid System.out.println() statements for displaying errors. Those are fine for debugging, but have no place in production code. Better to use a logger if you want to have some kind of developer related output during runtime.
  Avoid commented lines of code. It's messy and makes it seem like you lack confidence in your code.
  If you have skills that make use of technologies like JSON, REST, Persistence, JSF, etc. then showcase it. It's always more interesting than vanilla Java code.
  If you show up to a job interview with a laptop and are ready to show your work in action, that's VERY good.

And of course, I'm happy to offer critique of your code anytime.

If you have time to, I would appreciate it. I should warn you, I'm definitely guilty of some of those you mentioned. Commented code runs amok in some of the programs, and I use the occasional System.out.println() in the wrong way. I think perhaps my biggest flaw is (what I perceive to be) an over-reliance on the Collections like Lists, when an array would suffice. Maybe as a more senior developer, you can clear that up with me.

I suppose my biggest question would be this: What can I do to make sure my code follows good practices? I've seen practices defined as strictly as "No debug print statements" to as loosely as "Declare all interfaces with an 'I' prepended to the name" (And the opposite; no prepending at all). What is "good" practice, for that matter?

Sorry for a possibly-complex question...

Good practice means anything that makes the code consistent and easy to maintain. Some people like tons of comments, some people like none. (I'm more to the "less is more" crowd when it comes to commenting. Good variable and method names go a long way toward self-documenting code.) Starting interfaces with an 'i' is a rule I've never seen done, and even core Java doesn't use that one. (Example: Serializeable)

If I'm a developer sitting down to modify your code, I want to have an easy time figuring out what it does and where I need to make my changes. The most egregious offense in modern programming is duplicate code.

As for Lists vs. Arrays... I personally hate Arrays. I seldom use them when I don't absolutely have to.

Planning on dressing as a Space Marine for Halloween?

If I could pull it off the right way, I totally would.

Which is the hard part. I guess you'd need to make it out of some sort of foam...Next year.

Lame 80's movies?

Absolutely

Spring (The Java framework)?

It's ok, I'm a JSF fan myself.

Do you believe that if you put your faith in Jesus Christ you will go to heaven because of the price that Jesus paid for your sins? Do you have to DO anything to get to heaven? Why should God let you into heaven?

HankTheCowdog wrote:Do you believe that if you put your faith in Jesus Christ you will go to heaven because of the price that Jesus paid for your sins?

Yes.

HankTheCowdog wrote: Do you have to DO anything to get to heaven?

The simplest answer is "Be baptized." Mark 16:16

It's actually a much more complex question than that though.

HankTheCowdog wrote:Why should God let you into heaven?

Me personally, or people in general?

You personally

HankTheCowdog wrote:You personally

Ask Him.

What would you recommend for growth as an software engineer?
You know, besides Java.

Generally speaking, I'd recommend constantly learning new IT skills, and it doesn't matter what. It keeps the mind sharp and helps avoid getting into the comfort zone rut. The team I'm responsible for right now is having severe growing pains because I'm imposing some new ways of doing things. The adaptable people are rolling with the changes no problem, and the comfort zone people... not so much. Never have I heard so much whining...