PMD Plugin for IntelliJ Idea

I have written an update for the intelliJ plugin for PMD. Tom has mentioned about it in the pmd site. You can download it from Idea itself or from here. Read more about its features and start using it!

new Boolean()

Java, for some strange reason had constructors for the Boolean object:
Boolean(boolean b) and Boolean(String s).
I could not think of any situation where this is useful (In fact the javadoc for the first form mentions it, but not the second). Consider the following:

Boolean b = new Boolean("true");
Boolean b1 = new Boolean(true);
Boolean b2 = Boolean.TRUE;

Now we have three object references, which are conceptually the same but not equal. Here, b == b1, b == b2 and b1 == b2 all result in false.

Looks like Auto boxing in 1.5 at least takes care of this, So if we have

Boolean b1 = true;
Boolean b2 = Boolean.TRUE;

b1 == b2 is indeed true. (Boolean.valueOf() methods had no problem anyway)

btw, a Boolean can be thought of as an example of a Flyweight.