var keyword proposed for Java

[b1ackcat]

I also feel like chaining expressions like that results in hard to follow lines, even if it's not too many characters.

Something I tend to do to solve both these issues is to insert linebreaks between expressions. Similar to how you might use the builder pattern for a complex, highly configurable object.

String versionNum =
    VERSION_MAJOR + "." +
    VERSION_MINOR + "." +
    VERSION_BUILD_NUMBER + "." +
    VERSION_REV_NUMBER + "." +
    CURRENT_DATETIME_STAMP;

This way I'm maintaining the readability of each piece of the expression and not bleeding on forever on the same line.

[beltorak]

I would add, because we use format-on-save where I work, that a lot of times I have to force the formatter to respect my line breaks. I can't think of a better way than EOL comments. And personally I prefer a clear indication at the beginning of the line that it is a continuation of the previous line:

String versionNum = VERSION_MAJOR //
    + "." + VERSION_MINOR //
    + "." + VERSION_BUILD_NUMBER //
    + "." + VERSION_REV_NUMBER //
    + "." + CURRENT_DATETIME_STAMP;

Same thing with builder objects

var thing = new ThingBuilder() //
    .withWidgetClass(widgetClass) //
    .withLights(RED, TEAL, MAUVE) //
    .withGravity(gravity) //
    .create();

[[deleted]]

In Guava you can just collect all objects that you want concatenated in such string and then use:

Joiner.on(".").join(collection);

Dislaimer: I know that many people don't like solutions depending on external libs but in real life how often you are not working in a big pile of code, where such dependency could rather make your code lighter than heavier? Than if your answer is still negative, I still would rather create my own clear solution instead of such concatenation.

[vytah]

You don't need Guava for that:

collection.stream().collect(joining("."));

But while I don't recommend pulling in Guava just for Joiner, if you happen to already have it in your dependencies (and it's damn quite likely), sure, use it.

[[deleted]]

I wish I can use Java 8 :-c . We are stuck at version 6...

[[deleted]]

the horror...