Any reason to clean up unused imports in Java, other than reducing clutter?
Is there any good reason to avoid unused import statements in Java? As I understand it, they are there for the compiler, so lots of unused imports won't have any impacts on the compiled code. Is it just to reduce clutter and to avoid naming conflicts down the line?
(I ask because Eclipse gives a warning about unused imports, which is kind of annoying when I'm developing code because I don't want to remove the imports until I'm pretty sure I'm done designing the class.)
Answer
I don't think that performance problems or something like that are likely if you are not removing the imports.
But there could be naming conflicts, in rare cases like importing the list interface.
In Eclipse you can always use a shortcut (depends on OS - Win: Ctrl + SHIFT + O and Mac: COMMAND + SHIFT + O) to organize the imports. Eclipse then cleans up the import section removes all the stale imports etc. If you are needing a imported thing again eclipse will add them automatically while you are completing the statement with Ctrl + SPACE. So there is no need in keeping unused code in you class.
As always unused code will distract you and other people while reading the code and leaving something in your active code because of maybe I need it later is mostly seen as bad practice.