Nice improvement is to use Enum with behaviour. This is an example from *Effective Java* book : public enum Operation { PLUS("+") { double apply(double x, double y) { return x + y; } }, MINUS("-") { double apply(double x, double y) { return x - y; } }, TIMES("*") { double apply(double x, double y) { return x * y; } }, DIVIDE("/") { double apply(double x, double y) { return x / y; } }; private final String symbol; Operation(String symbol) { this.symbol = symbol; } @Override public String toString() { return symbol; } abstract double apply(double x, double y); }