Question

I have this scenario:

This two clases with this attributes:

• Table [Id, Name, Parent_Id]
• Field [Id, Name, Creation_Time, Creation_Date]

Is it a good practice to make an Abstract Class to implemet the attributes and properties for ID and NAME so that I save some time writting code; or is it better to rewrite each attribute and property on each class? Or maybe use an Interface?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I don’t think either choice make sense. If you use an abstract class, when someone looks at a class that inherits from your abstract class they may be at pains to discover just where that information is. It’s probably the worst part about inheritance: hiding important details in a class up in the inheritance chain somewhere.

An interface is kind of a contract that a class has to adhere to so that, usually, it can be used by some other mechanism. A great example is an iterator, such a class usually needs a “next” method. You guarantee that an instance of a class can be iterated if it subscribes to an interface which requires it to have a “next” method. That way a mechanism that wants to iterate through your instance can know it will work. If that’s not making sense for what you want to do, maybe don’t use this.