Best practices in Java - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Best Practices in Java Programming

📖 Scenario: You are working on a small Java program to manage a list of books in a library. You want to write clean, readable, and maintainable code by following best practices.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple Java program that stores book titles and authors in a Map, uses a constant for the library name, iterates over the map with proper variable names, and prints the list of books clearly.

📋 What You'll Learn

Use meaningful variable names

Use constants for fixed values

Use proper indentation and spacing

Use enhanced for loop with descriptive variable names

Print output clearly with labels

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Managing collections of data like books, products, or users is common in software. Writing clear and maintainable code helps teams work together and makes future changes easier.

💼 Career

Following best practices in Java is essential for professional developers to produce reliable, readable, and maintainable software that others can understand and improve.

1

Create the initial data structure

Create a Map<String, String> called books with these exact entries: "1984" : "George Orwell", "To Kill a Mockingbird" : "Harper Lee", and "The Great Gatsby" : "F. Scott Fitzgerald".

Java

# Create the Map called books with the given entries
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use Map<String, String> books = new HashMap<>(); and books.put(key, value); to add entries.

2

Add a constant for the library name

Add a final String constant called LIBRARY_NAME with the value "City Library" above the main method.

Java

import java.util.Map;
import java.util.HashMap;

public class Library {
    // Add the final String constant LIBRARY_NAME here
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Map books = new HashMap();
        books.put("1984", "George Orwell");
        books.put("To Kill a Mockingbird", "Harper Lee");
        books.put("The Great Gatsby", "F. Scott Fitzgerald");
    }
    
    // Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Use private static final String LIBRARY_NAME = "City Library"; before the main method.

3

Iterate over the books map with descriptive variable names

Use a for loop with variables title and author to iterate over books.entrySet() and print each book's title and author in the format: Title: [title], Author: [author].

Java

import java.util.Map;
import java.util.HashMap;

public class Library {
    private static final String LIBRARY_NAME = "City Library";

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Map books = new HashMap();
        books.put("1984", "George Orwell");
        books.put("To Kill a Mockingbird", "Harper Lee");
        books.put("The Great Gatsby", "F. Scott Fitzgerald");

        // Use a for loop to iterate over books.entrySet() and print title and author
        // Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use for (Map.Entry<String, String> entry : books.entrySet()) and get the key and value with entry.getKey() and entry.getValue().

4

Print the library name before the book list

Add a System.out.println statement to print the LIBRARY_NAME before the list of books.

Java

import java.util.Map;
import java.util.HashMap;

public class Library {
    private static final String LIBRARY_NAME = "City Library";

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Map books = new HashMap();
        books.put("1984", "George Orwell");
        books.put("To Kill a Mockingbird", "Harper Lee");
        books.put("The Great Gatsby", "F. Scott Fitzgerald");

        // Print the library name here
        // Your code here

        for (Map.Entry entry : books.entrySet()) {
            String title = entry.getKey();
            String author = entry.getValue();
            System.out.println("Title: " + title + ", Author: " + author);
        }
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use System.out.println("Library: " + LIBRARY_NAME); before the loop.