In Fundamentals of Object-Oriented Design in UML Meilir Page-Jones offers the following guidelines for system maintainability:
- Minimise overall connascence
By breaking the system into encapsulated elements - Minimise connascence crossing encapsulation boundaries
By maximising the connascence within encapsulation boundaries
This feels like something of an “algorithm” for refactoring, if only we could quantify what “maximise” and “minimise” mean. In the next few months I’m going to have a stab at doing just that, with the help of audiences around Europe as I roll out my new talk “Love and Death: Everything you always wanted to know about coupling but were afraid to ask”. I plan to report back here as the wisdom of crowds helps me flesh out what the above algorithm might mean. First up is XProLo next week, followed by NWRUG in July. Watch this space…!