Default Interface Methods. What is deep meaningful difference now, between abstract class and interface?

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Conceptual

First of all, there is a conceptual difference between a class and an interface.

  • A class should describe an “is a” relationship. E.g. a Ferrari is a Car
  • An interface should describe a contract of a type. E.g. A Car has a steering wheel.

Currently abstract classes are sometimes used for code reuse, even when there is no “is a” relationship. This pollutes the OO design. E.g. FerrariClass inherits from CarWithSteeringWheel

Benefits

  • So from above, you could reuse code without introducing a (conceptually wrong) abstract class.
  • You could inherit from multiple interfaces, while an abstract class is only single inheritance
  • There is co- and contravariance on interfaces and not on classes in C#
  • It’s easier to implement an interface because some methods have default implementations. This could save a lot of work for an implementer of the interface, but the user won’t see the difference 🙂
  • But most important for me (as I’m a library maintainer), you could add new methods to an interface without making a breaking change! Before C# 8, if an interface was publicly published, it should be fixed. Because changing the interface could break a lot.

The logger interface

This example shows some of the benefits.

You could describe a (oversimplified) logger interface as follows:

interface ILogger
{
    void LogWarning(string message);

    void LogError(string message);

    void Log(LogLevel level, string message);
}

Then a user of that interface could log easily as warning and error using LogWarning and LogError. But the downside is that an implementer must implement all the methods.

An better interface with defaults would be:

interface ILogger
{
    void LogWarning(string message) => Log(LogLevel.Warning, message);

    void LogError(string message) => Log(LogLevel.Error, message);

    void Log(LogLevel level, string message);
}

Now a user could still use all the methods, but the implementer only needs to implement Log. Also, he could implement LogWarning and LogError.

Also, in the future you might like to add the logLevel “Catastrophic”. Before C#8 you could not add the method LogCatastrophic to ILogger without breaking all current implementations.

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