DontReuseAnnotations

Don't reuse binding annotations (aka @Qualifiers)

Sometimes, of course, it makes sense to bind some highly-related bindings with the same annotations. E.g. @ServerName String and @ServerName CharSequence.

That said, most binding annotations should only qualify one binding. And you should definitely not reuse a binding annotation for unrelated bindings.

When in doubt, don't reuse annotations: creating one is straightforward!

To avoid some boilerplate, sometimes it makes sense to use annotation parameters to create distinct annotation instances from a single declaration. For example:

enum Thing { FOO, BAR, BAZ }

@Qualifier
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@interface MyThing {
  Thing value();
}

You can then use @MyThing(FOO), @MyThing(BAR), and @MyThing(BAZ) rather than defining each of them as separate annotation types.

To construct Annotation object instances for parameterized annotations (e.g. to use in constructing a Key object), you can use the auto annotation helper.