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Arnold Rosario
16,357 PointsWhat's an example of changing the implementation whenever we want?
So in regards to using the interface List<String> as the type on the declaration side and using the implementation ArrayList<String>(); on the right side to allow us to change the implementation at any time.
What would be an example of doing that?
How come I see examples of people doing ArrayList<String> todoList = ArrayList<String>();?
Is List<String> todoList = ArrayList<String>(); the better practice?
1 Answer
Charles Cloud
6,134 PointsI think this link may be helpful to you: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4062982/list-versus-arraylist-as-reference-type
Per my limited understanding it seems that it varies depending on the operations that you will need to do with the data. If you know that you need to use a specific type of operation (that is only available on ArrayList for instance) on the data then you can be specific. If not, then leave it open and you are afforded greater flexibility in how you can use the data. The flexibility comes in being able to go back into your code later and change the implementation without breaking code that depends on simply the methods that list has as opposed to ones specific to implementations.