I have written a program that calculates the cost of transforming one string into another. I would like you to review it.public class EditDistance {    public static void main(String[] args) {        // TODO Auto-generated method stub        String source=COTI,destination =CAT;        System.out.println(getEditDistance(source,destination));    }    /**     * This function finds out the cost of transforming one string to      * another     * any change made to the string costs 1     * @param sourceString     * @param destinationString     * @return     */    public static int getEditDistance(String sourceString, String destinationString) {if (sourceString == null || destinationString == null){            throw new IllegalArgumentException(String cannot be null);        }        int distance = 0;        int sourceLength = sourceString.length() , destLength = destinationString.length();        for ( int i=0 ;i < sourceLength && i < destLength ; i++){            //how can I optimize loop condition, 3 conditions are checked on            //every iteration            if (sourceString.charAt(i) != destinationString.charAt(i)){                //if characters are unequal and increment the distance                distance++;            }        }        if (destLength !=  sourceLength ){            distance += Math.abs(sourceLength - destLength);        }        return distance;    }}However, I would like to optimize the loop condition. Currently, 3 operations are done.What can I do to speed it up or make it more elegant?
Edit distance between 2 strings
java;performance;strings;edit distance