Should I stop fighting Visual Studio's default namespace naming convention? [closed]

Question

I'm working on an MVVM project, so I have folders in my project like Models, ViewModels, Windows, etc. Whenever I create a new class, Visual Studio automatically adds the folder name to the namespace designation instead of just keeping the project-level namespace. So, adding a new class to the ViewModels folder would result in the namespace, MyProject.ViewModels instead of just MyProject.

When I first encountered this, it annoyed me. My class names are pretty clear, sometimes even containing the name of the folder in them (e.g., ContactViewModel). I quickly found myself manually removing the folder name on the namespaces. I even tried at one point to create a custom class template (see this question), but I couldn't get that to work, so continued doing it manually.

I've begun to wonder, though, if this convention exists for a good reason that I'm just not seeing. I could see it being useful if you for some reason had lots of sets of identical class names organized into folders, but that doesn't seem like a particularly common scenario.

Questions:

• Why is it common convention for namespace names to reflect folder structure?
• Do you abide by this convention? Why?

Answer 1

Same as you - I fought this for the longest time. Then I started considering why I created folders. I found myself starting to create folders to represent namespaces and packages instead of arbitrary buckets.

For instance, in an MVVM project, it might be helpful to put views and view models in a separate namespace. MVC will have a separate namespace for Models, Controllers, and Views. It is also beneficial to group classes by their feature.

Suddenly, the project feels more organized. It is easier for other developers to find where features are implemented.

If you standardize on your namespace practices, all of your projects will have the same predictable structure which will be a big win for maintenance.

Answer 2

If you want some solid advice I'd recommend buying Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries which gives you all you need to know from the actual framework design team.

...the goal when naming namespaces is creating sufficient clarity for the programmer using the framework to immediately know what the content of the namespace is likely to be...

<Company>.(<Product>|<Technology>)[.<Feature>][.<Subnamespace>] 

And importantly

Do not use the same name for a namespace and a type in that namespace

Fragmenting every 1/2 types into namespaces would not meet the first requirement as you would have a swamp of namespaces that would have to be qualified or used, if you followed the Visual Studio way. For example

Core - Domain - Users - Permissions - Accounts

Would you create

• MyCompany.Core.Domain.Users
• MyCompany.Core.Domain.Permissions
• MyCompany.Core.Domain.Accounts

or just

• MyCompany.Core.Domain

For Visual Studio's way it would be the former. Also if you use lowercase file/folder naming you're looking at renaming the class each time, as well as making one big namespace tangle.

Most of it is common sense and really down to how you would expect to see the namespaces organised if you were a consumer of your own API or framework.