Some Style Guidelines:

• Put curly braces on lines by themselves and line them up
• I don't care what order your methods are in (i.e. they don't have to be in alphabetical order
• Comments should explain why you are doing what you are doing
• When writing catch blocks, the variable names should use the letters of the particular exception they are trying to catch
• (i.e. catch (ArithmeticException ae)
• Variable names should be meaningful which means they should remind you of what values they are holding
• All code should have a javadoc heading /** this code ..
• All code should have @author and @version/date
• It's a good idea to version your code when you are debugging it. (i.e. when you are trying to fix an error,
• rename the class X as class X1 and save it as classX1.java . In case you need to go back to previous version it will still be there.
• Use white space to make your code readable
• Shorten code and comment lines so they don't wrap around when you print them. A good way to do this with output statements is to have the System.out.println on a separate line from the (" output text ");
• Each method should have only one return statement. If you have several places where the return value can be set, use a temporary variable in each of those places and return that variable in your return statement.
• Use // end main and // end class and // end xxx at the end of each code block as appropriate to remind you what you are ending
• Use this. when referring to class variables even when not required
• Indent with spaces instead of tabs to keep your lines from getting too long to print out on a single line. Using jGrasp's CSD is helpful in debugging and looking at your code but may indent too far to print on a single line.