Preferred style of writing listeners

Question

As a programmer who is just now seriously learning Java, I use two main books for references:
Java: How to Program (3rd Edition) by Dietel and Dietel
and Teach Yourself Java 2 in 21 Days (3rd edition) by Cadenhead and Lemay
The books differ on how they write listeners. Dietel suggests that you add a seperate listener to each component via an anonymous inner class, as below:
myComponent.addActionListener(
   new ActionListener()
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
         // do stuff
);Cadenhead and Lemay, however, suggest that your main class should implement one ActionListener and add it to all components that have actions associated with them, as below:
public class myApplication extends JFrame implements ActionListener
   public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
      if (e.getSource() == "a component")
         // do stuff
      if (e.getSource() == "another component")
         // do other stuff
      // etc., etc.
}I can understand not wanting to have so many anonymous inner class files, but at the same time I see the appeal to not having to check so many if statements. For a medium-sized application, which is preferred and why?

Answer 1

My preference is to use one inner class per listener, the Dietel way. That way my code says "Here's a button. And here's what happens when it's clicked on." That works for me provided that all the buttons do different things. But if I had a situation with 10 buttons that all did essentially the same thing (as in a calculator) then I would probably do something more like the Cadenhead and Lemay, since you wouldn't end up with a massive case-statement inside the single listener.
That's just my personal opinion. I don't even mind writing anonymous inner classes inside anonymous inner classes, following the rule I implied above of "code the object's behaviour next to its declaration". However many people would find that difficult to follow and to maintain, and I can sympathize with that viewpoint. You'll notice that I don't have trouble writing long complex sentences full of those clause things, either, so perhaps I'm not the best guide for simplicity.