Designing for Focused Functionalities
In essence, the Interface Segregation Principle promotes designing focused interfaces that cater to specific needs, resulting in a more user-friendly, flexible, and maintainable system.
- Break down a large interface into smaller, cohesive interfaces. Each interface should group related functionalities focusing on a specific task.
- Clients depend on the specific interfaces they need. They use only the functionalities relevant to their current task, ignoring others within the broader interface.
- Implementation classes provide specific functionalities. Concrete classes implement the specific interfaces they offer, avoiding implementing functionalities they don't support.
- Improved usability Smaller, focused interfaces are easier to understand and use for specific tasks.
- Reduced coupling Clients depend on only the functionalities they need, leading to looser coupling and improved maintainability.
- Increased flexibility New functionalities can be added by creating new interfaces without modifying existing ones.
- Promotes code reuse Smaller interfaces encourage code reuse for common functionalities across different contexts.
- Use ISP when a large interface has diverse functionalities with different client needs.
- Overuse can lead to a proliferation of small interfaces, creating unnecessary complexity.
- Choose clear and descriptive names for interfaces and their methods.