Avoid Apis From Prehistory | Java for small teams

Avoid apis from pre-history

Summary

Do not use Vector, StringBuffer and other archaic part of the JDK.

Details

Java has been around for over 20 years. In order to maintain backwards compatibility it has hoarded all manner of apis that no longer make sense to use. Some of there are handily marked with @Deprecated annotation, others are not.

Unfortunately many are still used in university courses and online examples. New Java programmers may not be aware they have been replaced - a few to watch out for include :-

java.util.Vector - use ArrayList instead
java.lang.StringBuffer - use StringBuilder instead
java.util.Stack - use a Dequeue (e.g. ArrayDeqeue)

Each of these replacements differ from the originals by not being synchronized. If you think you need a synchronized collection go away somewhere quiet and think again.