Top 10 lists are very popular, fun, and informative to read. But there are so many of them! How to choose the right one? Here’s a meta top 10 list helping you find the top 10 top 10 lists. On a more geeky note:
SELECT TOP 10 mistake FROM source1 UNION ALL SELECT TOP 10 mistake FROM source2 UNION ALL SELECT TOP 10 mistake FROM source3 ...
In this selection, I have carefully removed all of those top 10 newbie mistake lists that pop up when performing an average Google search. Because there aren’t 10 newbie mistakes, there are about one million. I’m more interested in subtle mistakes and problems. So, join me in reading these awesome 10 lists of top 10 Java mistakes / best practices (in no particular order)
1: ZeroTurnaround’s 10 Common Pitfalls of Experienced Java Developers & Architects
ZeroTurnaround has just released this one, in time for my post. The JRebel guys usually employ quite a geeky tongue-in-cheek, which I really like, of course:
2: jOOQ’s 10 Subtle Best Practices When Coding Java
Some advertising in our own cause. We have a top 10 list as well, about very subtle things that can go wrong when writing Java:
3: AppDynamic’s Top 10 Java Performance Problems
AppDynamics is giving away this interesting and very well-written eBook for only your contact information. (Don’t blame me if they’ll call you and sell you their products after you download the nice list).
4: The AmiableAPI’s Java API Design Checklist
This isn’t exactly a top 10 list, but more of a style guide helping you to write a good, clean API. Something that isn’t so obvious to do if you don’t write APIs every day:
5: Josh Bloch’s talk about How To Design a Good API and Why it Matters
While this one isn’t labeled as top 10, it certainly contains the top 10 things to do when designing APIs, citing from a very authoritative reference: Josh Bloch himself:
6: Top 10 Mistakes When Writing Server-Side JavaScript Using Rhino
Haha, just kidding. There’s only one mistake here. It’s the fact that you’re writing JavaScript. So, on the the real #6:
6: Pierre-Hugues Charbonneau’s Top 10 Causes of Java EE Enterprise Performance Problems
This one is extremely well-written. A very good read for all Java architects out there:
7: Top 10 Interesting Statements by Adam Bien About the Java Enterprise Edition 6 (JEE 6)
I like to cite Adam Bien. He’s very dogmatic, pro JEE Java Rock Star. While I most certainly don’t agree with him in many aspects, I still enjoy reading his blog. This list is not by Adam Bien himself, but by a Kai Waehner, who has summarised Adam Bien’s opinions quite well:
8: Top 15 Worst Computer Software Blunders
OK, this one isn’t about Java in particular, neither does it show concrete best practices. But why do we need best practices and avoid common mistakes? Yes, because things can go terribly wrong. Here’s how wrong they can go:
9: Top 10 Java People You Should Know
You think this list is incomplete? Very unlikely. But you still might be interested in looking up the top 10 Java people, which have influenced our every day work like few others. They have said many things in their professional lives, which could fill many more top 10 lists. Here’s the “Top 10 Java People You Should Know” list:
10: The Top 10 List of Best Java-Related Top 10 Lists
And here’s a killer list explaining all about the origins of tail-recursion and – possibly – StackOverflowErrors:
