@inbook {IOPORT.05942516,
    author       = {Taube-Schock, Craig and Walker, Robert J. and Witten, Ian H.},
    title        = {Can we avoid high coupling?},
    year         = {2011},
    booktitle    = {ECOOP 2011 -- object-oriented programming. 25th European conference, Lancaster, UK, July 25--29, 2011. Proceedings},
    isbn         = {978-3-642-22654-0},
    pages        = {204-228},
    publisher    = {Berlin: Springer},
    doi          = {10.1007/978-3-642-22655-7_10},
    abstract     = {Summary: It is considered good software design practice to organize source code into modules and to favour within-module connections (cohesion) over between-module connections (coupling), leading to the oft-repeated maxim ``low coupling/high cohesion''. Prior research into network theory and its application to software systems has found evidence that many important properties in real software systems exhibit approximately scale-free structure, including coupling; researchers have claimed that such scale-free structures are ubiquitous. This implies that high coupling must be unavoidable, statistically speaking, apparently contradicting standard ideas about software structure. We present a model that leads to the simple predictions that approximately scale-free structures ought to arise both for between-module connectivity and overall connectivity, and not as the result of poor design or optimization shortcuts. These predictions are borne out by our large-scale empirical study. Hence we conclude that high coupling is not avoidable-and that this is in fact quite reasonable.},
    identifier   = {05942516},
}