Contract naming conventions (edited)

As luck would have it, yet another Google search turned up a whole host of answers, some of which are on this very forum :)

• https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/general-discussion/interface-and-trait-naming
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24890316/interface-and-repository-naming-in-php-and-laravel
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/34072046/whats-the-difference-between-a-contract-in-laravel-and-an-interface-in-php

Would still be good to get an answer to my last question about management though.

@davestewart Because it was a choice made by the framework author. No other reason than that. Guidelines are exactly that: guidelines.

Sure, I get that @martinbean

I've just taken some time out to re-read through the first thread I posted above.

@thepsion5's post mentioned:

I use to append Interface to my interfaces, but I've found that it's not terribly intuitive, especially for typehinting. Mentally, it's easier for me to parse someFunction(UserRepository $users) than someFunction(UserRepositoryInterface $users). Not by a lot, but it adds up over time, especially when I'm dealing with a really complex applications.

I agree with him that appending Interface (even though it's the preferred PHP convention) feels cumbersome in type hinting:

someFunction(UserRepositoryInterface $users) { ... }

The main alternative offered by a few posters, initially @RayRutjes was to alias classes on import:

use UserRepositoryInterface as UserRepository;
someFunction(UserRepository $users) { ... }

That's seems like the best approach to balance explicitness with expressiveness.

Though as a one-liner, I still like the I-prefix:

someFunction(IUserRepository $users) { ... }

Whether or not I use that in my own code remains to be seen. Generally when using a new language or framework I like to work with the best practices as laid down by the framework or author (as you mentioned) as I find it the best way to make your code portable to other people.

As my last question mentioned, I'm also looking for tips on how to manage this, but I guess perhaps it will just come down to experience.

@davestewart The ‘I’ prefix (i.e. IUserRepository) has never really been a PHP convention in the ten years or so I’ve worked with the language. It seems more prevalent in C#. The prefix is Hungarian-style notation that came from loosely-typed languages to donate its type. Tools and IDEs have got better so that we no longer need to do that. Hungarian notation was already considered “old hat” when I started PHP.

My background is AS3, so that goes some way to explaining it, whether considered old hat or not :P