Give better names to your DTOs
The Java Language Specification states the following regarding the name convention for classes:
Names of class types should be descriptive nouns or noun phrases, not overly long, in mixed case with the first letter of each word capitalized.
ClassLoader SecurityManager Thread Dictionary BufferedInputStream
Having said that, your Data Transfer Object class names should follow the convention mentioned above.
Suffixing a class name with DTO or Dto won’t tell much about the class itself besides indicating it carries data without any behaviour. So, instead of just calling your objects DTO, it might be worth considering more meaningful names, which convey better semantics for the classes.
Here are a few name suggestions you could use:
SomeSortOfCommandSomeSortOfConfigurationSomeSortOfCredentialsSomeSortOfDetailsSomeSortOfElementSomeSortOfEventSomeSortOfFilterSomeSortOfHeaderSomeSortOfInputSomeSortOfInstructionSomeSortOfItemSomeSortOfMessageSomeSortOfMetadataSomeSortOfOperationSomeSortOfOutputSomeSortOfPayloadSomeSortOfProjectionSomeSortOfPropertiesSomeSortOfQueryParameterSomeSortOfQueryResultSomeSortOfRepresentationSomeSortOfRequestSomeSortOfResourceSomeSortOfResponseSomeSortOfResultSomeSortOfRowSomeSortOfSettingsSomeSortOfSpecificationSomeSortOfStatusSomeSortOfSummary
Note 1: Whether acronyms or all capitalized words should be handled as words or not, I guess it’s up to you. Check the
Java API and you will find some stumbles like
ZipInputStream /
GZIPInputStream. Both classes are in the
same package and the name convention is not consistent.
HttpURLConnection doesn’t show any consistency with acronyms either.
Note 2: Some names listed above were borrowed from this article written by Richard Dingwall (the original article seems to be no longer available, so here’s a cached copy from Web Archive).