Would it be OK to put my public interfaces into their own package (for my organisation only).
for example
com.example.myprogram - contains all normal code
com.example.myprogram.public - contains public accessible interfaces
com.example.myprogram.abstract - contains abstract classes
Is this a good or a bad thing to do, are there any disadvantages?
I wouldn't like this practice at all. You should group classes, both abstract and concrete, and interfaces according to functionality.
Look at the Java API as an example. Did Sun separate the Collections interfaces from implementations? No. Sun's practices aren't always the best guide, but in this case I agree.
Don't do it.
I can suggest you 2 common ways:
If you really think that your interfaces can have more implementations in future (i.e. you're working on API) then move them to a separate module and create there special package with name 'core', for example. (com.example.myprogram.core). Implementations should be in correspondent packages (like com.example.myprogram.firstimpl).
If you have only 1 implementation then let all your interfaces be in com.example.myprogram package and all concrete classes in com.example.myprogram.impl package.
I can't see that as being bad practice, however you might wanna consider as an alternative organizing your stuff per logical functionality rather than syntactic definition, so that all code for a given unit of functionality interfaces/abstract classes/normal code goes in the same package. This is one of the principles of modular programming.
Said so, putting all the interfaces (but only those) in a separated package might be necessary depending on the size of the project, and might eve become almost necessary if you have a pure component based plugin architecture (so that other module know only about interfaces and the actual implementation is somehow dynamically injected).
Public interfaces are a formal contract between system modules or systems. Because of that, it makes sense to isolate them from the remainder of the code, to make them stand out.
For example, in a system I've worked on, all public interfaces between the server and client components of the system have been placed in a special system module (called, no surprise, "api"). This has a number of desirable effects, among which these:
- semantically, you know where to look if you need any kind of information on how communication should take place
- you can version the api module separately, which is especially useful when you don't want a moving target, i.e. you sign a contract to deliver an application which will support "the api v.1.1" rather than constantly playing catch while someone else changes the interface and requires you to adapt your side
That doesn't mean you shouldn't organize them further in sub-packages to distinguish what they are for. :)
In summary, you are doing the right thing by separating the interfaces from the rest of the code base, although depending on your specific needs, you might do well to take it a step further and isolate the interfaces in a separate system module.
Related
I would like to know if in Java (JDK 17) there is a way to easily handle classes and packages encapsulation in an hexagonal architure. I would like to make unavailable classes present in an adapter to the domain.
To illustrate my goal, say we have this package organisation:
com.company
|-domain
|-model
|-Customer.java
|-Product.java
|-ports
|-DbPort.java
|-ServiceBusPort.java
|-services
|-CustomerService.java
|-ProductService.java
|-adapters
|-inbound
|-rest
|-CustomerRestAdapter.java
|-ProductRestAdapter.java
|-bus
|-ServiceBusAdapter.java
|-RabbitAdapter.java
|-outbound
|-db
|-entities
|-Customer.java
|-Product.java
|-repositories
|-CustomerRepository.java
|-ProductRepository.java
|-mappers
|-bus
|-dtos
|-CutomerDto.java
|-ProductDto.java
|-mappers
What I want to achieve is: all classes and packages under com.company.adapters should not be visible from the com.company.domain package. The goal is to prevent developers to use for example the class com.company.adapters.outbound.db.entities.Customer in com.company.domain.services.CustomerService. But classes inside com.company.domain should be accessible from everywhere.
To achieve strong encapsulation with Java, you could make use of maven modules per layer, left, right and domain.
I have not tried but I guess Java 9 modules would also help here. Check this link.
Another approach I use for the sake of simplicity and code readability, is to use a single module, without strong encapsulation, but different packages per layers, one for domain, another for infra..
And, to enforce architecture rules within this module, like hexagonal ones, I usually define a unit test which fails in case of any violation, for example when some domain package code directly depends on a technical API client implem defined outside the domain.
So far I have used Archunit framework for that.
Also I prefer this approach because, as a developer or new joiner for example, IMO it is much easier to break some architecture rules / encapsulation patterns, not being aware till the code review, rather than breaking / ignoring a test which would fail the build, and which would also act as a spec for these rules.
What you want to achieve is definitey doable in Java.
There are numerous examples - for example check out the JAXP library:
While you use the DocumentBuilderFactory to instantiate a DocumentBuilder and ultimately parse a Document, everything but the factory are interfaces abstracting away a concise implementation, which is the pattern you are aiming at.
To get more concise: All that you need to do is come up with the right combination of classes, interfaces and packages. Have a look at Design Patterns which describe what you need to do. The book "Design Patterns" by the Gang of Four is very helpful in that respect.
Situation: Suppose we're designing the UI of Windows 9 using Java API. We need to build up 3 classes main, BuildInWindow and ApplicationWindow.
main - the window for rendering the system UI (i.e. the start botton & wallpaper page)
BuildInWindow- windows for rendering buildt-in apps (e.g. IE)
ApplicationWindow- windows for rendering apps from third party (e.g. eclipse)
all of them have to implement 3 Java API interfaces, WindowFocusListener, WindowListener and WindowStateListener and have the methods onExit() and onCrushing().
onExit() performs when the system/built-in app/ third-party app is shut down normally
onCrushing() captures any system/application crush and send system state back to server
This is the original design:
http://i.stack.imgur.com/JAJiY.png
I have some ideas of how to design it in a OO manner, but I am not sure if that's the right way. Here's my thoughts:
Create an abstract class with method onExit() and onCrushing(). Since the code of onExit()would vary from 3 classes, it should be an abstract method & onCrushing()would be same fo all classes, so it would be an concrete method
tHE MAIN WINdow should use singleton design to ensure user only create one instance of main.
Use the facade design to save the trouble of implementing 3 interfaces to three classes
My question is I don't really understand facade design, so I am not sure if it can be applied in this case. Also I am not really sure if onExit() would be different for 3 classes and onCrushing() would perform the same function.
I tried my best to explain the question clearly...if you don't understand free free to comment. Thank you very much!
I've left some questions in a comment linked to your question but here's some guidance for you:
You shouldn't create an abstract class on the basis of both BuildInwindow and ApplicationWindow both having to have methods #onExit and #onCrushing if they are not to share any implementation. Abstract classes are most useful where there is a common implementation. An interface containing these methods would be sufficient. That said, your two windows may share other functionality and, if so, it could be shared through a common superclass (abstract if it relies on subclass implementation detail). You may find the Template Method pattern useful for managing the overall window mechanism with specific tailoring for different window types. You may also find the Factory Method means of instance creation (for your window classes) will help separate the object creation and set-up from the creation mechanism.
A single shared instance would seem sensible and a singleton would serve this purpose (so long as you're able to handle termination, etc). Alternatively, your application may just launch a single Main instance - you may even just hide the constructor through package access to ensure no others are created.
The facade pattern just serves to simplify a complex interface. It mainly does this by rolling calls to collaborating instances together under a single (coarser) interface. This wouldn't normally be a done to hide which interfaces a class supports. Indeed, publishing which interfaces a class extends is important to API users. You could roll the three interfaces into a single interface for "convenience" but I think this is unnecessary. If you do settle on a common superclass then that would "extend" the three interfaces (if all subclasses were expected to support them). It may also implement some default implementation of these interfaces (again, watch access modifiers to ensure those you intend to be can be overridden while others may be final).
Edit: Guidance
You just have to identify the classes and relationships:
I suggest you just grab some paper and draw. You already have your nouns and verbs (you can otherwise go noun and verb spotting to identify classes and methods on them).
So, why not draw a simple diagram containing all the info (A, B, C, Main, etc) and draw the relationships between them. This is your start point. You may have some confusion when working out how Main links to the window classes (given there are two kinds). Just write a note on it and move on to clarify the rest of the picture.
Next, refine your diagram to start moving common features into a single place (abstraction). You know this exists with regards to your interfaces and the methods you suggest but you may need to decide which (if any) have any common functionality. Then decide if interfaces satisfies your needs (methods are common but implementations are different) or if the implementation itself is the same and so a parent superclass may be useful (this addresses abstraction [who is responsible for what], encapsulation [individual implementations at the appropriate level] and polymorphism [which classes support common methods]). Note that, even if you settle on an superclass, you'd be wise to back it with an interface (it makes introduction of sibling or replacement classes easier in time - think maintenance).
Next, work on the issues you found. Has your draft design clarified any of them? For instance, your Main needs to know about its windows but - what type are they? So, has any of your refinement made this clearer?
Do any patterns present themselves? for this you need to already have a feel for design patterns I'm afraid so buy and absorb the GoF Design Patterns book. It'll put you in good stead for spotting patterns as you go. I'd also recommend reading this specific book before taking on any others as it's technology agnostic (and some other books arebloated with tech-specific workarounds). Perhaps study the two patterns I pointed out and see if they fit your requirement.
On the whole though, your ideas seem to be going in the right direction.
Here's the scenario. As a creator of publicly licensed, open source APIs, my group has created a Java-based web user interface framework (so what else is new?). To keep things nice and organized as one should in Java, we have used packages with naming convention
org.mygroup.myframework.x, with the x being things like components, validators, converters, utilities, and so on (again, what else is new?).
Now, somewhere in class org.mygroup.myframework.foo.Bar is a method void doStuff() that I need to perform logic specific to my framework, and I need to be able to call it from a few other places in my framework, for example org.mygroup.myframework.far.Boo. Given that Boo is neither a subclass of Bar nor in the exact same package, the method doStuff() must be declared public to be callable by Boo.
However, my framework exists as a tool to allow other developers to create simpler more elegant R.I.A.s for their clients. But if com.yourcompany.yourapplication.YourComponent calls doStuff(), it could have unexpected and undesirable consequences. I would
prefer that this never be allowed to happen. Note that Bar contains other methods that are genuinely public.
In an ivory tower world, we would re-write the Java language and insert a tokenized analogue to default access, that would allow any class in a package structure of our choice to access my method, maybe looking similar to:
[org.mygroup.myframework.*] void doStuff() { .... }
where the wildcard would mean any class whose package begins with org.mygroup.myframework can call, but no one else.
Given that this world does not exist, what other good options might we have?
Note that this is motivated by a real-life scenario; names have been changed to protect the guilty. There exists a real framework where peppered throughout its Javadoc one will find public methods commented as "THIS METHOD IS INTERNAL TO MYFRAMEWORK AND NOT
PART OF ITS PUBLIC API. DO NOT CALL!!!!!!" A little research shows these methods are called from elsewhere within the framework.
In truth, I am a developer using the framework in question. Although our application is deployed and is a success, my team experienced so many challenges that we want to convince our bosses to never use this framework again. We want to do this in a well thought out presentation of the poor design decisions made by the framework's developers, and not just as a rant. This issue would be one (of several) of our points, but we just can't put a finger on how we might have done it differently. There has already been some lively discussion here at my workplace, so I wondered what the rest of the world would think.
Update: No offense to the two answerers so far, but I think you've missed the mark, or I didn't express it well. Either way allow me to try to illuminate things. Put as simply as I can, how should the framework's developers have refactored the following. Note this is a really rough example.
package org.mygroup.myframework.foo;
public class Bar {
/** Adds a Bar component to application UI */
public boolean addComponentHTML() {
// Code that adds the HTML for a Bar component to a UI screen
// returns true if successful
// I need users of my framework to be able to call this method, so
// they can actually add a Bar component to their application's UI
}
/** Not really public, do not call */
public void doStuff() {
// Code that performs internal logic to my framework
// If other users call it, Really Bad Things could happen!
// But I need it to be public so org.mygroup.myframework.far.Boo can call
}
}
Another update: So I just learned that C# has the "internal" access modifier. So perhaps a better way to have phrased this question might have been, "How to simulate/ emulate internal access in Java?" Nevertheless, I am not in search of new answers. Our boss ultimately agreed with the concerns mentioned above
You get closest to the answer when you mention the documentation problem. The real issue isn't that you can't "protect" your internal methods; rather, it is that the internal methods pollute your documentation and introduce the risk that a client module may call an internal method by mistake.
Of course, even if you did have fine grained permissions, you still aren't going to be able to prevent a client module from calling internal methods---the jvm doesn't protect against reflection based calls to private methods anyway.
The approach I use is to define an interface for each problematic class, and have the class implement it. The interface can be documented solely in terms of client modules, while the implementing class can provide what internal documentation you desire. You don't even have to include the implementation javadoc in your distribution bundle if you don't want to, but either way the boundary is clearly demarcated.
As long as you ensure that at runtime only one implementation is loaded per documentation-interface, a modern jvm will guarantee you don't suffer any performance penalty for using it; and, you can load harness/stub versions during testing for an added bonus.
The only idea that I can think in order to supply this missing "Framework level access modifier" is CDI and a better design.
If you have to use a method from very different classes and packages in various (but few) situations THERE WILL BE certainly a way to redesign those classes in order to make those methods "private" and inacessible.
There is no support in Java language for such kind of access level (you would like something like "internal" with namespace). You can only restrict access to package level (or the known inheritance public-protected-private model).
From my experience, you can use Eclipse convention:
create a package called "internal" that all class hierarchy (including sub-packages) of this package will be considered as non-API code and could be changed anytime with no guarantee for your users. In that non-API code, use public methods whenever you like. Since it is only a convention and it is not enforced by the JVM or Java compiler, you cannot prevent users from using the code, but at least let them know that these classes were not meant to be used by 3rd parties.
By the way, in Eclipse platform source code, there is a complex plugin model that enforces you not to use internal code of other plugins by implementing custom class loader for each plugin that prevents loading classes that should be "internal" in these plugins.
Interfaces and dynamic proxies are sometimes used to make sure you only expose methods that you do want to expose.
However that comes at a fairly hefty performance cost, if your methods are called very often.
Using the #Deprecated annotation might also be an option, although it won't stop external users invoking your "framework private" methods, they can't say they hadn't been warned.
In general I don't think you should worry about your users deliberately shooting themselves in the foot too much, so long as you made it clear to them that they shouldn't use something.
I've been programming in Java for a few courses in the University and I have the following question:
Is it methodologically accepted that every class should implement an interface? Is it considered bad practice not to do so? Can you describe a situation where it's not a good idea to use interfaces?
Edit: Personally, I like the notion of using Interfaces for everything as a methodology and habit, even if it's not clearly beneficial. Eclipse automatically created a class file with all the methods, so it doesn't waste any time anyway.
You don't need to create an interface if you are not going to use it.
Typically you need an interface when:
Your program will provide several implementations for your component. For example, a default implementation which is part of your code, and a mock implementation which is used in a JUnit test. Some tools automate creating a mock implementation, like for instance EasyMock.
You want to use dependency injection for this class, with a framework such as Spring or the JBoss Micro-Container. In this case it is a good idea to specify the dependencies from one class with other classes using an interface.
Following the YAGNI principle a class should implement an interface if you really need it. Otherwise what do you gain from it?
Edit: Interfaces provide a sort of abstraction. They are particularly useful if you want to interchange between different implementations(many classes implementing the same interface). If it is just a single class, then there is no gain.
No, it's not necessary for every class to implement an interface. Use interfaces only if they make your code cleaner and easier to write.
If your program has no current need for to have more than 1 implementation for a given class, then you don't need an interface. For example, in a simple chess program I wrote, I only need 1 type of Board object. A chess board is a chess board is a chess board. Making a Board interface and implementing that would have just required more code to write and maintain.
It's so easy to switch to an interface if you eventually need it.
Every class does implement an interface (i.e. contract) insofar as it provides a non-private API. Whether you should choose to represent the interface separately as a Java interface depends on whether the implementation is "a concept that varies".
If you are absolutely certain that there is only one reasonable implementation then there is no need for an interface. Otherwise an interface will allow you to change the implementation without changing client code.
Some people will shout "YAGNI", assuming that you have complete control over changing the code should you discover a new requirement later on. Other people will be justly afraid that they will need to change the unchangeable - a published API.
If you don't implement an interface (and use some kind of factory for object creation) then certain kinds of changes will force you to break the Open-Closed Principle. In some situations this is commercially acceptable, in others it isn't.
Can you describe a situation where it's not a good idea to use interfaces?
In some languages (e.g. C++, C#, but not Java) you can get a performance benefit if your class contains no virtual methods.
In small programs, or applications without published APIs, then you might see a small cost to maintaining separate interfaces.
If you see a significant increase in complexity due to separating interface and implementation then you are probably not using interfaces as contracts. Interfaces reduce complexity. From the consumer's perspective, components become commodities that fulfil the terms of a contract instead of entities that have sophisticated implementation details in their own right.
Creating an interface for every class is unnecessary. Some commonly cited reasons include mocking (unneeded with modern mocking frameworks like Mockito) and for dependency injection (e.g. Spring, also unneeded in modern implementations).
Create an interface if you need one, especially to formally document public interfaces. There are a couple of nifty edge cases (e.g. marker interfaces).
For what it's worth, on a recent project we used interfaces for everything (both DI and mocking were cited as reasons) and it turned out to be a complete waste and added a lot of complexity - it was just as easy to add an interface when actually needed to mock something out in the rare cases it was needed. In the end, I'm sure someone will wind up going in and deleting all of the extraneous interfaces some weekend.
I do notice that C programmers first moving to Java tend to like lots of interfaces ("it's like headers"). The current version of Eclipse supports this, by allowing control-click navigation to generate a pop-up asking for interface or implementation.
To answer the OP's question in a very blunt way: no, not all classes need to implement an interface. Like for all design questions, this boils down to one's best judgment. Here are a few rule of thumbs I normally follow:
Purely functional objects probably
don't need to (e.g. Pattern,
CharMatcher – even though the
latter does implement Predicate, it
is secondary to its core function)
Pure data holders probably don't need
to (e.g. LogRecord, Locale)
If you can
envision a different implementation
of a given functionality (say, in-memory
Cache vs. disk-based Cache), try to
isolate the functionality into an interface. But don't go too far trying to predict the future either.
For testing purposes, it's
very convenient when classes that do
I/O or start threads are easily mockable, so
that users don't pay a penalty when
running their tests.
There's nothing
worse than a interface that leaks its
underlying implementation. Pay attention where you draw the line and make sure your interface's Javadoc is neutral in that way. If it's not, you probably don't need an interface.
Generally
speaking, it is preferable for
classes meant for public consumption
outside your package/project to
implement interfaces so that your
users are less coupled to your
implementation du jour.
Note that you can probably find counter-examples for each of the bullets in that list. Interfaces are very powerful, so they need to be used and created with care, especially if you're providing external APIs (watch this video to convince yourself). If you're too quick in putting an interface in front of everything, you'll probably end up leaking your single implementation, and you are only making things more complicated for the people following you. If you don't use them enough, you might end up with a codebase that is equally hard to maintain because everything is statically bound and very hard to change. The non-exhaustive list above is where I try to draw the line.
I've found that it is beneficial to define the public methods of a class in a corresponding interface and when defining references to other classes strictly use an interface reference. This allows for easy inversion of control, and it also facilitates unit testing with mocking and stubbing. It also gives you the liberty of replacing the implementation with some other class that implements that interface, so if you are into TDD it may make things easier (or more contrived if you are a critic of TDD)
Interfaces are the way to get an polymorphism. So if You have only one implementation, one class of particularly type, You don't need an interface.
A good way of learning what are considered good methodologies, especially when it comes to code structure design, is to look at freely available code. With Java, the obvious example is to take a look at the JDK system libraries.
You will find many examples of classes that do not implement any interfaces, or that are meant to be used directly, such as java.util.StringTokenizer.
If you use Service Provider Interface pattern in your application interfaces are harder to extend than abstract classes. If you add method to interface, all service providers must be rewritten. But if you add non-abstract method to the abstract class, none of the service providers must be rewritten.
Interfaces also make programming harder if only small part of the interface methods usually have meaningfull implementation.
When I design a new system from scratch I use a component oriented approach, each component (10 or more classes) provide an interface, this allows me (sometimes) to reuse them.
When designing a Tool (Or a simple system) I think this must not necessarily be an extensible framework I introduce interfaces when I need a second implementation as an option.
I saw some products which exposed nearly every functionality by an interface, it took simply too much time to understand unnecessary complexity.
An interface is like a contract between a service provider (server) and the user of such a service (client).
If we are developing a Webservice and we are exposing the rest routes
via controller classes, controller classes can implement interfaces
and those interfaces act as the agreement between web service and the
other applications which use this web service.
Java interfaces like Serializable, Clonnable and Remote
used to indicate something to compiler or JVM.When JVM sees a class
that implement these interfaces, it performs some operation on the to
support Serialization, cloning or Remote Method Invocation. If your class needs these features, then you will have to implement these interfaces.
Using Interface is about to make your application framework resilient to change. Since as I mentioned here (Multiple Inheritance Debates II: according to Stroustrup) multiple inheritance was cancelled in java and c# which I regret, one should always use Interface because you never know what the future will be.
I've been running some metrics on my Java project and apparently there are a lot of dependency cycles between packages. I didn't really know how to organize stuff into packages, so I just did what made sense to me, which is apparently wrong.
My project is a neural network framework. Neural networks have Neurons, which are connected to each other with Connections. They need to depend on each other. However, there are also different types of Neurons, so I thought it'd be a good idea to put them all in there own 'neurons' package. Obviously a Connection isn't a Neuron so it shouldn't be in the package, but since they refer to each other, I now have a circular dependency.
This is just an example, but I have more situations like this. How do you handle these kinds of situations?
Also, I read that classes in a package higher up in the package hierarchy are not supposed to refer to classes in packages that are deeper. This would mean that a NeuralNetwork class in package 'nn' can not refer to the Neuron in package 'nn.neurons'. Do you guys follow this principle? And what if I would move NeuralNetwork to 'nn.networks' or something? In that case, it would refer to a sibling package instead of a child. Is that better practice?
The antcontrib VerifyDesign task will help you do what you want:
For example, if there are three
packages in one source tree
* biz.xsoftware.presentation
* biz.xsoftware.business
* biz.xsoftware.dataaccess
and naturally presentation should only
depend on business package, and
business should depend on dataaccess.
If you define your design this way and
it is violated the build will fail
when the verifydesign ant task is
called. For example, if I created a
class in biz.xsoftware.presentation
and that class depended on a class in
biz.xsoftware.dataaccess, the build
would fail. This ensures the design
actually follows what is documented(to
some degree at least). This is
especially nice with automated builds
So once you have decided how things should be organized you can enforce the requirements at compile time. You also get fine-granied control so you can allow certain cases to break these "rules". So you can allow some cycles.
Depending on how you want to do things, you might find that "utils" package makes sense.
For the particular case that you cite... I might do something like this:
package nn contains Nueron and Connection
package nn.neurons contains the subclasses of Nueron
Neuron and Connection are both high-level concepts used in the NeuralNetowrk, so putting them all together makes sense. The Neuron and Connection classes can refer to each other while the Connection class has no need to know about the Neuron subclasses.
First of all, you are rightfully concerned because circular dependencies between packages are bad. Problems that come out of it grow in importance with the size of the project, but no reason to tackle this situation on time.
You should organize your classes by placing classes that you reuse together in the same package. So, if you have for example AbstractNeuron and AbstractConnection, you’d place them in the same package. If you now have implementations HumanNeuron and HumanConnection, you’d place these in the same package (called for example *.network.human). Or, you might have only one type of connection, for example BaseConnection and many different Neurons. The principle stays the same. You place BaseConnection together with BaseNeuron. HumanNeuron in its own package together with HumanSignal etc. VirtualNeuron together with VirtualSignal etc.
You say: “Obviously a Connection isn't a Neuron so it shouldn't be in the package..”. This is not that obvious, nor correct to be exact.
You say you placed all your neurons in the same package. Neither this is correct, unless you reuse all your implementations together. Again, take a look at scheme I described above. Either your project is so small you place all in the single package, or you start organizing packages as described.
For more details take a look at The Common Reuse Principle:
THE CLASSES IN A PACKAGE ARE REUSED TOGETHER. IF YOU
REUSE ONE OF THE CLASSES IN A PACKAGE, YOU REUSE THEM
ALL.
How do you handle these kinds of situations?
Circular dependencies aren't inherently bad. In fact, this can sometimes be a case of the "cure being worse than the disease": extracting an interface increases the level of complexity of your code and adds another layer of indirection. That's probably not worth it for very simple relationships.
I do not think cyclic dependencies like the ones you describe have to be bad. As long as the concepts that are interdependent are at the same level of abstraction and relate to the same parts of the architecture, it may not be necessary to hide these from each other. Neurons and Connections fit this bill in my understanding.
A common to reduce such couplings is to extract interfaces, and possibly even put these in a separate module. Simply organizing by packages inside a single project does not allow you to hide implementation details sufficiently. A common pattern that allows you to really hide implementations is as follows:
Client Code ----> Interfaces <--- Implementation
In this pattern, you hide the "Implementation" module from the client code, which means the code in the "Client code" module doesn't even see the implementation code.
The nesting of packages serves several purposes: Some projects may have a domain model which is organized in packages. In this case the packages reflect some grouping of the domain, and references may go up/down packages. When it comes to things like implementation of services, your suggested pattern is quite common and a good thing to follow. The deeper in the package hierarchy you get the more specific the class is believed to be.
What kind of code size are we talking about? If you only have 10-20 classes, you probably don't need to (and shouldn't) over-organize your code into packages just for the sake of it.
As your project grows, the first distinction you want to make is to separate user-interface code from the underlying data model and the logic. Having cleanly separated layers is crucial in order to be able to do proper unit testing.
If you're having trouble in getting rid of the circular dependencies, it is probably the case the the classes are actually interdependent, and should reside in the same package.
Getting the abstraction layers right is probably one of the most important aspects when designing the overall code structure.