| > There are clear cases when the approach advocated in the paper just does not work. The paper calls for being deliberate in how you modularize your code. So is your alternative to have, what, no modules? To just arbitrarily divide your code between modules? If you have modules (whatever that means in your language(s)) and you don't consider how to divide your code across them, you're inviting trouble because now you're just being cavalier and avoiding the task of thinking. Not being deliberate is careless. > For example, in the example in the paper they assumed that the task would stay the same Yes, he did do that. Both versions, however, largely make this task independent of the modules other than the master control module by putting the KWIC task into master control module itself. All the other modules facilitate the KWIC task and the master control module plumbs it all together. In either design, a change in the task will require changes to a variety of modules but will require changing at least the master control module in both cases. How many other changes are needed? Who knows! Depends on how big a change we're making to the task. The second design, though, leaves the facilitating modules more independent of each other, in a "what do they have to know about each other" sense. The line storage is presented as an interface, none of the other modules have to know how it works, just how to work it. This is in sharp contrast to the first design, where the line storage model is explicitly known by each of the several modules, and any change to it requires changing most of the program. |