The switch statement

A nice post by Tom McQueeney on the new varargs feature in JDK5 marred by one point:

if (params.length > 0) lastName = params[0];
if (params.length > 1) firstName = params[1];
if (params.length > 2) middleName = params[2];
if (params.length > 3) nickName = params[3];

if (params.length > 4) {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Constructor called with too many arguments");
}

Why the series of if statements? A simple switch statement with fall-through is more clear:

switch (params.length) {
case 4: nickName = params[3];
case 3: middleName = params[2];
case 2: firstName = params[1];
case 1: lastName = params[0];
    break;
default:
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Constructor called with too many arguments");
}