What package naming convention do you use for personal/hobby projects in Java?
java, naming-conventions
Solution
If you're just doing personal projects where nobody else will use the code, then you can make up a package name that you like. Don't make up something that starts with `com.` or `net.` or other top-level domain though, because that would imply that you own the domain name (ie. using `com.john` as your package name just because your name happens to be John is not a good idea).
If you're going to give the code to anybody else, you should use a globally unique package name, which according to Java conventions means you should register and use a domain name.
Problem
I'm already familiar with the standard Java package naming convention of using a domain name to create a unique package name (i.e. package `com.stackoverflow.widgets`). However, I've never seen any recommendations for how to choose package names for personal projects. I assume because this is because this is really a matter of personal taste. So, how do you choose package names for personal projects that will never make it into production (you might be experimenting with a new framework in your spare time). Assuming you don't have a personal website whose domain you can use to create your package structure, what do (or would) you do? Do you have a logical system in place for generating new package names for hobby projects, or do you just use simple throw-away package names like `mypackage`? Since I'm just curious to see what different people's thoughts are on this, I've made this a community wiki. For me personally, I've never given it much thought, but I wanted to play around with Wicket tonight and it occurred to me that I don't have a clear idea of how I want to organize my hobby projects. A separate, distinct package naming convention for hobby projects (in my mind, at least) would serve as a good way to keep personal and work-related code clearly separate from each other. I was thinking of a simple hierarchal naming convention, to keep the source for my personal projects in a single root folder: - Use `myprojects` as the root folder - Append the project name - Add any additional subpackage names So, my Wicket project would be in the package `myprojects.learningwicket` and unit tests would be in the package `myprojects.learningwicket.tests` (for example).