I'm afraid I don't understand the question. You mean naming variables and methods so you can say things like this? department.adopt(newEmployee) Seems to

I'm afraid I don't understand the question. You mean naming variables and methods so you can say things like this? department.adopt(newEmployee) Seems to me that's a very common convention and has the Department instance as the direct object, and the Employee instance as the indirect object as you suggest. If that's correct, can you give an example of conventions that "ignore this restriction"?