import flamewar.*;

Marc Portier discusses the current recommended practices for import statements in Java. This is a never ending argument that is so completely irrelevant to development that only fools get involved in it. So let me jump into the argument. The rule is very simple, always use .* until you hit a conflict then add the appropriate specific import. Mostly with my code that means you wind up with:

import java.util.*;
import java.util.List;
import java.awt.*; Why is this rule in place? Because my time is more important than some fool who doesn't either use a half decent IDE or know the APIs well enough to guess where a class is. I don't think about import statements when I'm coding – I've got better things to think about. Every time I hit compile and get an error back (or get a red squiggly underline in the code) that amounts to “You're missing an import statement” it's a waste of my time. I hit control-shift-O the import is added and I get back to being productive. If I use specific imports that interruption happens every time I use a new class, if I use .* imports, that interruption happens every time I use a new package. The interruption is even worse for the people who don't use an IDE because they have to manually navigate to the top of the file, add the import and then find where they were again. I'm doing them a favor! If you don't like my rule, that's fine. Just hit control-shift-O or your IDEs equivalent and it will reformat the imports to however you prefer them. While you're there you may want to hit the reformat button and the position of braces will be what you want too. What? Your IDE doesn't do that? Tough.