I like Jimmy's answer a lot, but I feel I need to add something to it. The key to the whole thing is the "able" in IProcessable . It indicates a capability (or property, but meaning "intrinsic quality", not in the sense of C# properties) of the object that implements the interface. IAnimal is probably not a good example for an interface, but IWalkable might be a good interface to have if your system has many things that can walk. You might have classes derived from Animal such as Dog, Cow, Fish, Snake. The first two would probably implement IWalkable, the latter two don't walk, so they wouldn't. Now you ask "why not just have another superclass, WalkingAnimal, that Dog and Cow derive from?". The answer is when you have something completely outside the inheritance tree that also can walk, such as a robot. Robot would implement IWalkable, but probably wouldn't derive from Animal. If you want a list of things that can walk, you type it as IWalkable and you can put all walking animals plus robots in the list.

现在，将IWalkable替换为IPersistable这样更像软件的东西，这样的类比就更接近你在实际程序中看到的情况了。

In my experience the driving force to create interfaces didn't occur until I start doing unit testing with a mocking framework. It became abundantly clear that using interfaces was going to make mocking much easier (since the framework depended on the methods being virtual). Once I started I saw the value of abstracting away the interface to my class from the implementation. Even if I don't create an actual interface, I try now to make my methods virtual (providing an implicit interface that can be overridden).

我发现还有许多其他原因可以加强重构到接口的良好实践，但是单元测试/模拟的事情提供了最初的“顿悟时刻”的实践经验。

EDIT: To clarify, with unit testing and mocking I always have two implementations -- the real, concrete implementation and an alternate mock implementation used in testing. Once you have two implementations, the value of the interface becomes obvious -- deal with it in terms of the interface so you can replace the implementation at any time. In this case I'm replacing it with a mock interface. I know that I can do this without an actual interface if my class is constructed properly, but using an actual interface reinforces this and makes it cleaner (clearer to the reader). Without this impetus, I don't think I would have appreciated the value of interfaces since most of my classes only, ever have a single concrete implementation.

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。

它还允许您执行模拟单元测试(. net)。如果您的类使用接口，您可以在单元测试中模拟对象，并轻松地测试逻辑(无需实际触及数据库或web服务等)。

http://www.nmock.org/

使用接口有很多目的。

Use in polymorphic behavior. Where you want to call specific methods of a child class with an inteface having a reference to the child class. Having a contract with classes to implement all of the methods where it is necessary, like most common use is with COM objects , where a wrapper class is generated on a DLL which inherits the interface; these methods are called behind the scenes, and you just need to implement them but with the same structure as defined in the COM DLL which you can only know through the interface that they expose. To reduce memory usage by loading specific methods in a class. Like if you have three business objects and they are implemented in a single class, you can use three interfaces.

例如IUser, IOrder, IOrderItem

public interface IUser()
{

void AddUser(string name ,string fname);

}

// Same for IOrder and IOrderItem
//


public class  BusinessLayer: IUser, IOrder, IOrderItem

{    
    public void AddUser(string name ,string fname)
    {
        // Do stuffs here.
    }

    // All methods from all interfaces must be implemented.

}

如果你只想添加一个用户，可以这样做:

IUser user = new (IUser)BusinessLayer();

// It will load  all methods into memory which are declared in the IUser interface.

user.AddUser();

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。