Abstract
For around three decades Software Engineering gurus have "sold" us the ideal of minimal coupling and maximal cohesion at all levels of abstraction as a way to reduce the effort to understand and maintain software systems. The object-oriented paradigm brought a new design philosphy and encapsulation mechanisms that apparently would help us to achieve that desideratum. However, after a decade where this paradigm has emerged as the dominant one, we are faced with practitioners' reality: coupling and cohesion do not seem to be the dominant driving forces when it comes to modularization. This conclusion was based on a relatively large sample of heterogeneous systems. We describe an environment that allows not only assessing this reality but also deriving better modularization solutions in what concerns coupling and cohesion. These solutions are generated by means of cluster analysis techniques and partially preserve the original modularization criteria. We believe this approach can be of great help in reengineering actions of object-oriented legacy systems.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 47-57 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2001 |
| Event | Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering - Lisbon, Portugal Duration: 14 Mar 2001 → 16 Mar 2001 |
Conference
| Conference | Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering |
|---|---|
| Country | Portugal |
| City | Lisbon |
| Period | 14/03/01 → 16/03/01 |
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Keywords
- Clustering analysis
- Cohesion
- Coupling
- Modularity
Cite this
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Coupling and cohesion as modularization drivers : Are we being over-persuaded? / Brito e Abreu, Fernando; Goulão, Miguel.
2001. 47-57 Paper presented at Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering, Lisbon, Portugal.Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper
TY - CONF
T1 - Coupling and cohesion as modularization drivers
T2 - Are we being over-persuaded?
AU - Brito e Abreu, Fernando
AU - Goulão, Miguel
PY - 2001/12/1
Y1 - 2001/12/1
N2 - For around three decades Software Engineering gurus have "sold" us the ideal of minimal coupling and maximal cohesion at all levels of abstraction as a way to reduce the effort to understand and maintain software systems. The object-oriented paradigm brought a new design philosphy and encapsulation mechanisms that apparently would help us to achieve that desideratum. However, after a decade where this paradigm has emerged as the dominant one, we are faced with practitioners' reality: coupling and cohesion do not seem to be the dominant driving forces when it comes to modularization. This conclusion was based on a relatively large sample of heterogeneous systems. We describe an environment that allows not only assessing this reality but also deriving better modularization solutions in what concerns coupling and cohesion. These solutions are generated by means of cluster analysis techniques and partially preserve the original modularization criteria. We believe this approach can be of great help in reengineering actions of object-oriented legacy systems.
AB - For around three decades Software Engineering gurus have "sold" us the ideal of minimal coupling and maximal cohesion at all levels of abstraction as a way to reduce the effort to understand and maintain software systems. The object-oriented paradigm brought a new design philosphy and encapsulation mechanisms that apparently would help us to achieve that desideratum. However, after a decade where this paradigm has emerged as the dominant one, we are faced with practitioners' reality: coupling and cohesion do not seem to be the dominant driving forces when it comes to modularization. This conclusion was based on a relatively large sample of heterogeneous systems. We describe an environment that allows not only assessing this reality but also deriving better modularization solutions in what concerns coupling and cohesion. These solutions are generated by means of cluster analysis techniques and partially preserve the original modularization criteria. We believe this approach can be of great help in reengineering actions of object-oriented legacy systems.
KW - Clustering analysis
KW - Cohesion
KW - Coupling
KW - Modularity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0035784848&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/CSMR.2001.914968
DO - 10.1109/CSMR.2001.914968
M3 - Paper
SP - 47
EP - 57
ER -