Should interfaces be placed in a separate package? [closed]

Answer 1

I'm doing this on a project and it is working well for me because of these reasons:

• Separately packaged interfaces and implementations are for a different use case than for the various types of Map or Set. There is no reason to have a package just for trees (java.util.tree.Map, java.util.tree.Set). It is just a standard datastructure, so put it together with the other datastructures. However, if you are dealing with a puzzle game that has a really simple debug interface and a pretty production interface, as part of its front-end you might have a com.your.app.skin.debug and a com.your.app.skin.pretty. I would not put these in the same package, because they do different things and I know I would resort to some SmurfNamingConvention (DebugAttackSurface, DebugDefenceSurface, PrettyAttackSurface etc) to create some informal namespace for the two if they were in the same package.

• My workaround for the problem of finding related interfaces and implementations that are in separate packages is to adopt a naming configuration for my packages. E.g. I can have all my interfaces in com.your.app.skin.framework, and know that other packages on the same level of the package tree are implementations. The disadvantage is that this is an unconventional convention. Honestly, I will see how good this convention is in 6 months time :)

• I do not use this technique religiously. There are interfaces which only make sense in a particular implementation. I don't stick them in the framework package. There are some packages where it doesn't look like I'm going to create 40 different implementation classes, so I don't bother.

• My application uses guice and has very many interfaces.

Questions of program design generally involve benefits and drawbacks and there is no one-size-fits all answer. Like why would you ever use this technique in a tiny 200-line program? It makes sense for me, given my other architectural choices, for my specific problem. :)

Answer 2

I prefer them in the same package. Feels pointless to create a package specifically for interfaces. This is especially redundant for teams that simply love their interface prefixes and suffixes (e.g. the "I", and "Impl" for Java).

If there's a needs to publish a set of interfaces as public API, it makes more sense to keep them in an entirely separate project and create project dependencies instead. But it all boils down to preference and convenience of the situation I suppose.