Page 2 of 3   « previous page   next page »

I've been using the Eclipse IDE for creating the Ping-Pong example, but you do not have to use any IDE, and can create these programs using any plain text editor and a standard javac compiler. In this case you'll need to follow the following steps to create these programs in the packages engine and screen.

1. Create a directory PingPong
2. Create two subdirectories inside called engine and package
3. Type and save the file PingPongTable.java in the directory screens
4. Type and save the file PingPongEngine in the directory engine
5. Get into the PingPong directory and compile both classes:
   C:\PingPong>javac screens/PingPongTable.java
   C:\PingPong>javac engine/PingPongEngine.java
6. Now you can run the program as follows:
   C:\PingPong>java screens.PingPongTable

Naming Conventions

If you are starting a new project, you need to come up with the directory structures and the names for your packages and these are some considerations to keep in mind:

• Name packages using small letters
  
• You should try to make your package/class name combination unique. There is a simple rule to achieve this: if you work for a company Best Bananas that has a Web site bestbananas.com, the URL of this Web site is guaranteed to be unique. Use this URL in a reverse order as a prefix to all your packages: com.bestnananas. If the name of your project is Shipping, add this word or abbreviation after this prefix: com.bestbananas.ship. You can further separate classes based on their functioinality, for example:
  com.bestbananas.ship.invoicing
  com.bestbananas.ship.delivery.

  Directory structure will look as follows:
  
       com
          bestbananas
                ship
                  invoicing
                  delivery
  

• Think of the future uses of your packages. For example, if the invoicing package may be reused in a different application, do not include there classes that are specific to your Shipping application.
  
• If you have some useful classes that perform such commonly used functions as date formatting or logging, create separate directory for them like util and log.
  

Page 2 of 3   « previous page   next page »