Why declaring Swing variables in longform

[africanhacker]

I initially learnt how to design GUIs directly as source code. Now we (I am a student) are supposed to start using an interface to speed up the process. However, when I go into the source code I notice that the tool is generating longer code that I would have by hand. (I am using Netbeans)


For example it generates this:

private javax.swing.JTextField topFieldText;

Whereas I would ordinarily just do this:

private JTextField topFieldText;

I know this is probably a nuisance question but I would appreciate a response that explains why it does this. Which one of the two is best practice?

Many thanks in advance to those who will respond.

[pbrockway2]

Personally I wouldn't use the long winded form which I regard as far less readable. Sometimes the uneditable code in NB doesn't give you any choice in the matter.

If you post code here, many will not bother to read screenfuls of NB generated code and will expect you to construct a small example by hand (the way you are used to).

[JosAH]

Note that NetBeans can't safely generate the short form of those class names because the user might have used those class names for his/her own program; two different classes with the same (unqualified) name yields uncompilable code.

kind regards,

Jos

[africanhacker]

Thanks guys, very speedy response. I would imagine that the clever people at Sun would have created an option for you to drop this needless code and take the risk of clashing classes, given that one would obviously be conscious of this possibility.

All the same, thank you for the explanation.

[JosAH]

Thanks guys, very speedy response. I would imagine that the clever people at Sun would have created an option for you to drop this needless code and take the risk of clashing classes, given that one would obviously be conscious of this possibility.

All the same, thank you for the explanation.

NetBeans doesn't really look at your own code (it doesn't need to be finished yet) and if it generated short names for the Swing classes it blocks you in the near future from using those short names for other classes ...

kind regards,

Jos