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Comment by guelo | Hacker News Reader

Since he lumps in Java with C and C++ it's worth pointing out that this specific bug is not possible in Java since unreachable code is a compiler error. I assume the same for C#.

Also, many style guides such as Josh Bloch's highly influential 'Effective Java' recommend against the 2-line if statement without curly braces since it's known to be prone to this type of error. His argument that keywords are better than braces for ending blocks is weak.

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In C# if this were nested between two Catch blocks (for handling different types of exceptions, per this example) then it would throw a compiler error.

If it were a switch statement, you'd get a warning for code that will never be executed.

I don't think that's quite his argument. His argument is that in Eiffel, the keywords are mandatory, whereas in C, the braces are optional (for a one-line body). And, in fact, mandatory braces would have prevented this particular issue.

> it's worth pointing out that this specific bug is not possible in Java since unreachable code is a compiler error

Not on my Java compiler (Android toolkit and Eclipse). I see it as a warning throughout the code base I work on. :-(

Use IntelliJ (Google's favorite Android IDE - they make a mod of it called Android Studio but the good stuff makes it back to IntelliJ)

I use ADT as well, and IIRC there are certain kinds of unreachable code that won't compile:

  public int foo(int i) {
      return 2;
      
      return i;
  }

I believe it is a warning in C# (have not used it in a while).

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