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Re: What is coupling? [Was: 3 XML Design Principles]

• To: Robert Koberg <rob@k...>
• Subject: Re: What is coupling? [Was: 3 XML Design Principles]
• From: Peter Hunsberger <peter.hunsberger@g...>
• Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 12:43:08 -0600
• Cc: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>, XML Developers List <xml-dev@l...>
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• Reply-to: Peter Hunsberger <peter.hunsberger@g...>

On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 10:30:37 -0800, Robert Koberg <rob@k...> wrote:
> Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> > Rick Jelliffe makes a pertinent observation offline:
> >
> > "In my old book, SGML  & XML Cookbook, I have some pages on Yourden and
> > Constantine's notions of Cohesion and Coupling. In their software
> > engineering terms, it is good
> > for a system designer to maximise cohesion while minimizing coupling.   They
> > are Ying and Yang, so any
> > discussion of one without the other is likely to be futile."
> >
> > Comments?
> >
> 
> Question:
> 
> Is cohesion maximized when the XML structure is flat and uses attributes
> to logically connect or is it maximized when the structure is nested
> hierarchically?
> 
> -Rob

My opinion: if you've got a single file (or data structure) then
you've got cohesion. Certainly the things you've glued together in
that file or data structure may have no logical connection to each
other, but that's a different issue.

To put it another way: XML can provide cohesion and reduce coupling,
the structure of the XML is an orthogonal concern.

-- 
Peter Hunsberger

• References:
  • RE: What is coupling? [Was: 3 XML Design Principles]
    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>
  • Re: What is coupling? [Was: 3 XML Design Principles]
    • From: Robert Koberg <rob@k...>

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