Software Engineering for Students A Programming Approach

• Exercises
6.1 What is modularity and why is it important?
Answers to self-test questions 85
6.2 Argue for and against restricting components to about seven statements.
6.3 Look at the way that the library methods are called within a library available to you –
say the Java or C# library. Assess what forms of coupling are demonstrated by the
methods.
6.4 Examine any software or software design that you have available. How are the
components coupled? What forms of coupling and cohesion are present? Analyze
the component types. Is information hiding in use? Can the structure be improved?
6.5 Is there any correspondence between:
(a) any one form of cohesion and information hiding?
(b) any form of coupling and information hiding?
6.6 Does functional decomposition tend to lead to components that possess a particular
form of cohesion? If so, which?
6.7 In functional decomposition, the components are functionally independent but they
may act upon shared data. Is functional decomposition compatible with information
hiding?
6.8 Does the data structure design method lead to a program structure that exhibits any
particular types of coupling and cohesion? How does information hiding relate to, or
contrast with, data structure design?
6.9 Does data flow design create a program structure that exhibits any particular types of
coupling and cohesion?
6.10 Does object-oriented design tend to create software structures that exhibit any particular
types of coupling and cohesion?
6.11 Consider a programming language with which you are familiar. What types of coupling
are allowed? What types are not permitted?
6.12 Compare and contrast the features for modularity provided by C++, Ada, Java and
Unix.
Answers to self-test questions
6.1 In order to understand one component, we are forced into studying them
all.
6.2 The method performs a single well-defined action. The parameters are
pure data. This is functional cohesion.