Tight Coupling

Synonyms

Strong coupling

Definition

Tight coupling indicates strong dependency between software components. The dependency is strong in the sense that two or more components have multiple and complex dependencies between internal states, data and functions of the components.

Key Points

Tight coupling often achieves high performance characteristics at the expense of flexibility and ease of maintenance. It is often justified for systems that are going to be used as a black box, with no expectation of ongoing maintenance or upgrade. The smaller a systems is, the more congruent its function is, the more likely it would justify tight coupling as a design principle. This is why one can find tight coupling in the components of larger systems. In this situation a number of tightly coupled components might be interacting using loosely coupled approach. This type of systems leads to robust designs where maintainability and flexibility is achieved by simply replacing one or more components. At...