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Naming Conventions for Interfaces and Their Implementations

Status

  • Accepted

Context

When there's an interface that has multiple implementations it's often easy enough to give meaningful names to both the interface and the implementations (e.g. the interface Backend with the implementations ImapBackend and Pop3Backend). Naming becomes harder when the interface mainly exists to allow having isolated unit tests and the production code contains exactly one implementation of the interface. Prior to this ADR we didn't have any naming guidelines and the names varied widely. Often when there was only one (production) implementation, the class name used one of the prefixes Default, Real, or K9. None of these had any special meaning and it wasn't clear which one to pick when creating a new interface/class pair.

Decision

We'll be using the following guidelines for naming interfaces and their implementation classes:

  1. Interface Naming: Name interfaces as if they were classes, using a clear and descriptive name. Avoid using the "IInterface" pattern.
  2. Implementation Naming: Use a prefix that clearly indicates the relationship between the interface and implementation, such as DatabaseMessageStore or InMemoryMessageStore for the MessageStore interface.
  3. Descriptive Names: Use descriptive names for interfaces and implementing classes that accurately reflect their purpose and functionality.
  4. Platform-specific Implementations: Use the platform name as a prefix for interface implementations specific to that platform, e.g. AndroidPowerManager.
  5. App-specific Implementations: Use the prefix K9 for K-9 Mail and Tb for Thunderbird when app-specific implementations are needed, e.g. K9AppNameProvider and TbAppNameProvider.
  6. Flexibility: If no brief descriptive name fits and there is only one production implementation, use the prefix Default, like DefaultImapFolder.

Consequences

  • Positive Consequences

    • Improved code readability and maintainability through consistent naming.
    • Reduced confusion and misunderstandings by using clear and descriptive names.

  • Negative Consequences

    • Initial effort is required to rename existing classes that do not follow these naming conventions.