我喜欢军队的比喻。

中士不在乎你是软件开发人员、音乐家还是律师。 你被当作士兵对待。

对于中士来说，不去操心与他一起工作的人的具体细节更容易， 把每个人都当作抽象的士兵(…如果他们表现得不像孩子，就要惩罚他们)。

人们像士兵一样行动的能力被称为多态性。

接口是帮助实现多态的软件结构。

为了实现简单，需要抽象细节，这就是你问题的答案。

Polymorphism, which etymologically means "many forms," is the ability to treat an object of any subclass of a base class as if it were an object of the base class. A base class has, therefore, many forms: the base class itself, and any of its subclasses. (..) This makes your code easier for you to write and easier for others to understand. It also makes your code extensible, because other subclasses could be added later to the family of types, and objects of those new subclasses would also work with the existing code.

一些非编程示例可能帮助您了解接口在编程中的适当使用。

There's an interface between electrical devices and the electricity network - it's the set of conventions about the shape of the plugs and sockets and the voltages/currents across them. If you want to implement a new electrical device, as long as your plug follows the rules it will be able to get services from the network. This makes extensibility very easy and removes or lowers the costs of coordination: you don't have to notify the electricity provider about how your new device works and come to a separate agreement about how to plug your new device into the network.

各国都有标准的铁路轨距。这使得铺设铁轨的工程公司和建造在这些铁轨上运行的列车的工程公司之间实现了分工，并使铁路公司有可能在不重新设计整个系统的情况下更换和升级列车。

The service a business presents to a client can be described as an interface: a well defined interface emphasises the service and hides the means. When you put a letter in a mailbox, you expect the postal system to deliver the letter within a given time but you have no expectations about how the letter is delivered: you don't need to know, and the postal service has the flexibility to choose the means of delivery that best meets the requirements and current circumstances. An exception to this is the ability of customers to choose airmail - that's not the kind of interface a modern computer programmer would have designed, since it reveals too much of the implementation.

来自自然的例子:我不太喜欢eats()， makesSound()， moves()等例子。它们确实描述了行为，这是正确的，但它们没有描述交互以及它们是如何被启用的。在自然界中，使相互作用成为可能的界面的一个明显的例子是与繁殖有关的，例如一朵花为蜜蜂提供了一个特定的界面，以便授粉能够发生。

假设你想要模拟当你试图睡觉时可能发生的烦恼。

接口前的模型

class Mosquito {
    void flyAroundYourHead(){}
}

class Neighbour{
    void startScreaming(){}
}

class LampJustOutsideYourWindow(){
    void shineJustThroughYourWindow() {}
}

正如你清楚地看到的，当你试图睡觉时，许多“事情”都可能令人讨厌。

使用没有接口的类

但是在使用这些类时，我们遇到了一个问题。他们毫无共同之处。您必须分别调用每个方法。

class TestAnnoyingThings{
    void testAnnoyingThinks(Mosquito mosquito, Neighbour neighbour, LampJustOutsideYourWindow lamp){
         if(mosquito != null){
             mosquito.flyAroundYourHead();
         }
         if(neighbour!= null){
             neighbour.startScreaming();
         }
         if(lamp!= null){
             lamp.shineJustThroughYourWindow();
         }
    }
}

带有接口的模型

为了克服这个问题，我们可以引入一个iterface

interface Annoying{
   public void annoy();

}

并在类中实现它

class Mosquito implements Annoying {
    void flyAroundYourHead(){}

    void annoy(){
        flyAroundYourHead();
    }
}

class Neighbour implements Annoying{
    void startScreaming(){}

    void annoy(){
        startScreaming();
    }
}

class LampJustOutsideYourWindow implements Annoying{
    void shineJustThroughYourWindow() {}

    void annoy(){
        shineJustThroughYourWindow();
    }
}

接口使用

这将使这些类的使用更容易

class TestAnnoyingThings{
    void testAnnoyingThinks(Annoying annoying){
        annoying.annoy();
    }
}

一个代码示例(结合了Andrew的代码和我的额外的关于“接口的目的是什么”的代码)，也说明了为什么在不支持多重继承的语言(c#和java)上接口而不是抽象类:

interface ILogger
{
    void Log();
}
class FileLogger : ILogger
{
    public void Log() { }
}
class DataBaseLogger : ILogger
{
    public void Log() { }
}
public class MySpecialLogger : SpecialLoggerBase, ILogger
{
    public void Log() { }
}

注意，FileLogger和DataBaseLogger不需要接口(可以是Logger的抽象基类)。但是考虑到您需要使用第三方记录器，它迫使您使用基类(假设它公开了您需要使用的受保护的方法)。由于语言不支持多重继承，您将无法使用抽象基类方法。

底线是:尽可能使用接口来获得代码的额外灵活性。您的实现不那么受约束，因此它能更好地适应变化。

扩展一下Larsenal所说的。接口是所有实现类都必须遵循的契约。因此，您可以使用一种称为契约编程的技术。这允许您的软件变得独立于实现。

As several people have probably already answered, interfaces can be used to enforce certain behaviors between classes that will not implement those behaviors the same way. So by implementing an interface you are saying that your class has the behavior of the interface. The IAnimal interface would not be a typical interface because Dog, Cat, Bird, etc. classes are types of animals, and should probably extend it, which is a case of inheritance. Instead, an interface would be more like animal behavior in this case, such as IRunnable, IFlyable, ITrainable, etc.

接口有很多好处，其中一个关键就是可插拔性。例如，声明一个具有List参数的方法将允许传入实现List接口的任何东西，允许开发人员在以后删除和插入不同的列表，而不必重写大量代码。

您可能永远不会使用接口，但如果您正在从头开始设计一个项目，特别是某种类型的框架，您可能会想要熟悉它们。

我建议大家阅读Coad、Mayfield和Kern撰写的《Java设计》中关于接口的章节。它们比一般的介绍性文本解释得好一点。如果你不使用Java，你可以只阅读本章的开头，主要是一些概念。