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Software Design:

Content:

1. Abstraction

2. Architecture

3. Goals of Abstraction

4. Limitation of Abstraction

5. Patterns

6. Modulation

7. Advantages of Modulation

8. Functional Dependency

9. Advantage of functional Dependency

10. Cohesion

11. Types of cohesion

12. Coupling

13. Type of Coupling

14. Difference between cohesion and coupling

15. OOD

Abstraction: It is one of the concept of software engineering. It is about hiding

complexity in building many parts of your application.

An Example of Abstraction:

Consider a real-world analogy. User want to ride a motor bike. All user need to start the motor
bike is to put the key on, push the start button, and use the accelerator. While riding, user may
need to use the brake as well.
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You are not really concerned about how the engine, accelerator and brake are working during
the ride. All that is abstract to user and you are not concerned with it (unless you are
mechanic).

Whenever we build projects, wedo in layers. Here is the layered architecture of a simple web
application:

Architecture: It is a system describes its major components, their relationships

(structures), and how they react with each other. It includes many factors such as
Business strategy, quality attributes, human dynamics.

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It serves as a blueprint for a system. It provides an abstraction to control
the system complexity and develop a communication and coordination mechanism
among components.

It defines a solution to meet all the technical and operational requirements,

while consuming the common quality attributes like performance and security.

It involves a group of significant decisions about the organization related to software

development and one of these decisions can have a considerable impact on quality,
maintainability, performance, and the success of the last product.
These decisions comprise of :
• Selected elements and their interfaces by which system is composed.
• Behavior specified in groups among those elements.
• Composition of those structural and behavioral elements in large subsystem.
• It align with business objectives.
• It styles guide organization.

The goal of this is to identify requirements that affect the structure of

the project. Architecture decreases the business risks associated with building a
technical solution and builds a path between business and technical requirements.

Some of goals are:

• Expose the structure, but hide its implementation details.

• Realize all the use-case and scenarios.
• Try to address the requirements of some stakeholders.
• Handle functional and quality requirements.
Limitations:
• Less of tools and standardized ways to present architecture.
• Less of analysis methods to predict whether architecture will result in an implementation
that meets the requirements.
• Less of awareness of the importance of architectural design to software development.

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• Less understanding the role of software architect and bad communication among
stakeholders.

Patterns:It represents the good practices used by experienced object-oriented

software developers. They are solutions to basic problems that software
developers faced during software development. These solutions were taken and
error by numerous software developers over a quiteshort period of time.

Modularization:
It is a technique to divide a software into couple of discrete and
individual modules, which are expected to be capable of carrying out task
independently. These modules work as basic builds for the entire
software. Users tend to design modules such that they can be executed
or compiled separately and independently.
It follows the rules of ‘divide and conquer’ problem-solving method this is
because there are many other advantages attached with the modular
design of a software.

Advantage of modularization are:

• Smaller components are easier to maintain

• Application can be divided based on functional aspects

• Required level of abstraction can be brought in the program

• High cohesion can be re-used again

• Concurrent execution can be made possible

• Desired from security aspect

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For example, the Linux kernel is modular. Various computer program
languages refer to their libraries as "modules." Including a module in your
program adds new capabilities by granting access to pre-written code
objects.

Functional independence: It means that when a module focuses on a single

task, it should be accomplish it with very few interaction with other modules. It
is essential for good software design.

Advantage of functional independence:

• Error isolation:
When a module is functionally independent then it performs most of its task independently
without interacting with other modules much. It reduces the error getting propagated to other
modules. It helps easily isolating and tracing the error.

• Module reusability:
It performs well defined and specific task. So it becomes easy to reuse such modules
different program require same functionality.

• Understandability:
It is less complex so easy to understand. Such modules are less interacted with other modules
so can be understand in isolation.

Cohesion: It is a measure of degree to which the elements of the module are functionally
similar. A degree to which all elements directed towards performing a single task are stored in
the component. It is the internal glue that keeps the module together. A software design will
have high of cohesion.

Types of Cohesion:

• Functional Cohesion: Each required element for a single computation is

stored in the component. It performs the task and functions. It is an
ideal situation. Example : read transaction record, cosine angle
computation, seat assignment to an airline passenger etc.

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• Sequential Cohesion: An element results some data that becomes the
input for other element, i.e., data flow between the parts. It occurs
naturally in programming languages. Example: cross validate record and
formatting of module, raw records usage, formatting of raw records, cross
validation of fields in raw records.

• Communicational Cohesion: Two elements operate on the same input

data or distribute towards the same output data. Example- modify record
into the database and send it to the printer.

• Procedural Cohesion: It ensure the order of execution. Actions are still

connected and unlikely to be reusable. Ex- calculate student GPA, print
student record. Example : read, write, edit of the module, record use
out, writing out the record, reading the record, zero etc.

• Temporal Cohesion: The elements are similar by their timing involved. It

isconnected with all the tasks must be executed in the same time-span.
It contains the code for initializing the parts of the system. Example: A
function is called after catching an exception which closes open files,
creates an error log.

• Logical Cohesion: All elements are logically similar and not functionally.
Ex- It reads inputs from tape, disk, and network. The code for these
functions is in the same component. They are similar, but the functions
are different. Example: a group of print functions generating different
output reports are arranged into a single module.

• Coincidental Cohesion: The elements are not related. The elements have
no abstract relationship other than location in source code. It is the

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worst form of cohesion. Ex- print next line and reverse the characters of
a string in a single component, a “Utilities” class.
•

Coupling: It is the measure degree of interdependence between the

modules. Asoftware will have low coupling.

Types of Coupling:

• Data Coupling: Tthe dependence between the modules is based on the

strategy that they interact by passing only data, then the modules are
said to be data coupled. In data coupling, the components are freely to
each other and communicating through data. Module communications
don’t contain tramp data. Example-customer billing system. Example :
illustrated as a module which retrieves customer address using customer
id.

• Stamp Coupling: In this, the complete data structure is passed from one
module to another module. It involves tramp data. It may be mandatory
due to efficiency factors- this choice made by the insightful designer, not
a lazy programmer.

• Control Coupling: If the modules meet by passing control information,

then they are to be control coupled. It can be worst parameters showed
completely different behavior and good if parameters allow factoring and
reuse of functionality. Example- sort function that takes comparison
function as an argument. Example : a control flag, a comparison function
passed to a sort algorithm.

• External Coupling: The modules depend on another module, outside to

the software being establish or to a particular type of hardware. Ex-
protocol, external file, device format, etc.

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• Common Coupling: The modules have shared data such as global data
structures.The changes in data mean tracing back to all modules which
access that data to evaluate the effect of the change. Disadvantages are
likely to difficult in reusing modules, reduced ability to control data
accesses. Example : global information status regarding an operation,
with the multiple modules reading and writing to that location.

• Content Coupling: In this ,module can modify the data of another module
or control flow is passed from one module to the other module. This is
the bad form of coupling and should avoided.

Difference Between Cohesion and coupling:

Cohesion Coupling

It is the concept of intra module. It is the concept of inter module.

It represents the relationship within It represents the relationships

module. between modules.
Increasing in cohesion is good for Increasing in coupling is avoided for
software. software.
It represents the functional It represents the independence
strength of modules. among modules.
Highly cohesive gives the best Loosely coupling gives the best
,
software. software.

Object-Oriented Design:

The system is showed as a collection of objects. The state is distributed

among the entities, and each object handles its data. For example, in a
Library Automation Software, every representative may be a separate object
with its information and functions to operate on these data. The task state for
one purpose cannot refer or change data of other objects. They have their
internal data which represent their state.

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Data Design:It is the first design activity, which results in less complex, and
efficient program structure. The data objects, attributes, and relationships picture
in entity relationship diagrams and the application stored in data list provide a
base for data design activity. During the process, data types are specified
along with the integrity rules required for the data.

Architectural Design: It is a process for knowing the sub-systems making up a system and the
framework for sub-system control and communication. The output of this design process is
detailed of the software architecture. It is a stage of system design process.

An architectural design performs the following functions :

1. It evaluates all level designs.

2. It develops and documents level design for the outside and inside interfaces.
3. It develops preliminary versions of user documentation.
4. It defines and documents preliminary test requirements and the schedule for software
integration.
5. Information of the application domain for software to be developed.
6. Using data-flow diagrams.
,

User Interface Design: It is the front-end application view to which user interacts to use the
software. User can control the software as well as hardware user interface. It is found at each
place where digital technology exists, mobile phones etc.
It is a part of software and is designed in such a way that it is expected to provide the user insight
of the software. It provides fundamental platform for human-computer interaction.
It may be graphical, text-based, audio-video based, depending upon the hardware and software
combination. It can be combination of both.

The software becomes more famous if its user interface is:

• Attractive

• Simple to use

• Responsive in short time

• Clear to understand

• Consistent on all interfacing screen

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