What's wrong with assigning the file descriptor to a class called Names?

[Armando Moncada]

What's wrong with assigning the file descriptor to a class called Names?
See line 24

import com.javaranch.common.TextFileIn;
    
public class SortNames 
{
    public static class Names
    {
        public String firstName;
        public String lastName;
    }
    
    public static class CompareLastName implements Comparator< Names >
    {
        @Override
        public int compare( Names o1, Names o2 )
        {
            return o2.lastName.compareTo( o1.lastName );
        }
    }
    
    public static void main( String[ ] args ) throws IOException
    {
        ArrayList <String> theList = new ArrayList<String>();
    
        TextFileIn Names = new TextFileIn( "names.txt" );
        boolean doneReading = false;
        while( ! doneReading )
        {
             try
             {
                String name = Names.readLine();
                if ( name == null )
                {
                    doneReading = true;
                }
                else
                {
                    theList.add( name );
                }
            }
            catch ( Exception e )
            {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
        Names.close();
        Collections.sort( theList );
        System.out.println( theList );
    }

[Paul Clapham]

Well, actually, in that code you're trying to assign it to a variable called Names, not a class.

But what makes you think there is something wrong with it?

[Armando Moncada]

Well, my nitpicker said, "you're assigning the file descriptor to a class called Names? That can't be right."

[Bear Bibeault]

However, naming conventions dictate that variables should begin with a lowercase character. But it's just a convention (though not following it makes code surprisingly hard to read).

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

What Bear said!

Check this out:

        Names.close();  
        Collections.sort( theList ); 

You see how similar these two lines are? As a trained Java programmer, because of the capitalization I immediately think these are both static method calls, one on a class named "Names", and one on a class named "Collections". The fact that there is a class named "Names", and it doesn't actually have a method named "close()" is a source of great cognitive dissonance. It's a time waster, now, because I have to figure out what the heck is going on. If the variable name started with a lower-case letter, then I'd know it was a variable, and I'd first find out what type it was before trying to find any information about close().

[Mike Simmons]

Also, you're using the name "Names" twice, for two completely different things. One is the static class Names, and the other is for a local variable of type TextFileIn. This would be very confusing even if you weren't violating the name convention that Bear and Ernest are talking about. You should have different names for different things.