David O'Meara wrote: . . .
if(false=started) will give the error you expect
if(false==started) will then work as desired
see also
if("".equals(mystring)) and other constant==variable forms.
I personally would ban the use of == or != with
true or
false as an operand, on either side. But
if ("Campbell".equals(name)) is a good idea; you cannot get a NullPointerException from it, however hard you try.