Type Design Guidelines 

The guidelines presented in this section help library designers choose between various designs and implement types correctly.

Portions Copyright 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Portions Copyright Addison-Wesley Corporation. All rights reserved.

For more information on design guidelines, see the "Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries" book by Krzysztof Cwalina and Brad Abrams, published by Addison-Wesley, 2005.

In This Section

• Types and Namespaces
  Describes guidelines for organizing types and namespaces for discoverability.

• Choosing Between Classes and Structures
  Describes guidelines for implementing functionality in classes and structures.

• Choosing Between Classes and Interfaces
  Describes guidelines for implementing functionality in classes and interfaces.

• Abstract Class Design
  Describes guidelines for designing abstract classes.

• Static Class Design
  Describes guidelines for designing static classes.

• Interface Design
  Describes guidelines for designing interfaces.

• Structure Design
  Describes guidelines for designing structures.

• Enumeration Design
  Describes guidelines for designing simple and flags enumerations.

• Nested Types
  Describes guidelines for designing nested types.

Reference

Related Sections

• .NET Framework Class Library Reference
  Documents each of the public classes that constitute the .NET Framework.

• Design Guidelines for Developing Class Libraries
  Describes the best practices for class library development.