If your classes are globals, use fully qualified names

TL;DR: Don't use abbreviations in subclasses

Problems

• Readability

• Mistakes

Solutions

1. Rename your classes to provide context

2. Use modules, namespaces or fully qualified names

Sample Code

Wrong

abstract class PerserveranceDirection { 
}

class North extends PerserveranceDirection {}
class East extends PerserveranceDirection {}
class West extends PerserveranceDirection {}
class South extends PerserveranceDirection {}

//Subclasses have short names and meaningless outside the hierarchy
//If we reference East we might mistake it for the Cardinal Point

Right

abstract class PerserveranceDirection { 
}

class PerserveranceDirectionNorth extends PerserveranceDirection {}
class PerserveranceDirectionEast extends PerserveranceDirection {}
class PerserveranceDirectionWest extends PerserveranceDirection {}
class PerserveranceDirectionSouth extends PerserveranceDirection {}

//Subclasses have fully quallified names

Detection

Automatic detection is not an easy task. We could enforce local naming policies for subclasses.

Tags

• Naming

Conclusion

Choose your names wisely.

If your language supports it, use modules, namespaces and local scopes.

Relations

More Info

• What is in a name?

• MAPPER

Credits

Photo by Edvard Alexander Rølvaag on Unsplash

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The programmer's primary weapon in the never-ending battle against slow system is to change the intramodular structure. Our first response should be to reorganize the modules' data structures.

Frederick P. Brooks

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This article is part of the CodeSmell Series.