Question

I was wondering if the following code shows a bad practice (about interface inheritance):

public interface IFoo : IDisposable
{
    void Test();
}

public class TestImpl : IFoo
{
    public void Test()
    {
        // do something
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        // disposing my dependencies
    }
}

public class FooFactory
{
    public IFoo CreateFoo()
    {
        return new TestImpl();
    }
}

public class Client
{
    public void Main()
    {
        FooFactory factory = new FooFactory();
        using(IFoo foo = factory.CreateFoo())
        {
            // do stuff then auto-dispose
            foo.Test();
        }
    }
}

Here, I wanted two things:
1. Use the C#’s using statement so I can dispose my concrete object’s dependencies elegantly (no need to cast anything to IDisposable).
2. Use a factory method to create a concrete object, so I can work only with the interfaces.

Separated, both are known good practices, but together? I didn’t find anything saying it’s wrong here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229022.aspx (MSDN – Interface Design), but I think it doesn’t sound good…

I would appreciate any comment about this. If it’s a bad practice, what kind of issues I would run into using this approach?

Thanks!

Answer 1

In the wild, there is no such thing as a definitely good or bad practice, each has its upsides and downsides.
A practice becomes good or bad only when it is applied to a concrete problem (read: not IFoo).

public bool IsGood<TContext>(IPractice practice)
    where TContext : RealWorldApplication, new();

So, instead of trying to find guidance on MSDN, ask yourself the following question:

Does this solve the problem and make the code simpler to read?

If the answer is yes, go with it.

Personally, I like the approach. If the contract for IFoo requires proper disposal (think: IGraphicalObject, IResource, IConnection), it’s a very good design decision to make this explicit.

Don’t be trapped by dogma: programming with interfaces makes you less dependent on concrete implementations, but programming only with interfaces can be a nightmare. Be reasonable, that’s it.

Update

You can use Google to find all interfaces that inherit from IDisposable in .NET Framework itself:

intitle:interface "inherits idisposable" site:msdn.microsoft.com

As I said above, this is normally done for entities that are known to consume resources, such as database connections, unmanaged object wrappers, graphical objects, et cetera.

Imposing implementing Dispose() on a class that has nothing to dispose of would be a bad idea.
In this case it’s better to leave it optional and check for IDisposable support, as suggested by Peter.