How To Develop Isolated Modules In Software Systems ?

Isolation is one of the fundamental column of programming. We can use isolated modules like puzzle piece. We can plug and unplug whenever or whereever we want.

What Is Isolation ?

What do we mean with the isolation ? I think we need to start with to understand what isolation means in the field. Isolation actually known as Encapsulation in software systems. It helps us to provide decoupled components which does not effect each other state and only communicate through a certain interface provided by the components.

In software systems, encapsulation refers to the bundling of data with the mechanisms or methods that operate on the data. It may also refer to the limiting of direct access to some of that data, such as an object’s components. Encapsulation allows developers to present a consistent and usable interface which is independent of how a system is implemented internally

Wikipedia – Encapsulation (computer programming)

Benefits Of Encapsulation

There are many pros of having decoupled components when designing a software system. Here some of the core benefits;

• Modularity. Encapsulation allows us to break down large software systems into smaller, more manageable components. Each component can be designed and implemented independently, and encapsulation ensures that the modules can interact with each other through well-defined interfaces, without having to know the internal details of each other’s implementation
• Reusability: Encapsulation makes it easier to reuse code modules in different contexts and applications. Encapsulated modules can be treated as black boxes that provide a specific functionality without revealing their internal details.
• Maintainability: Encapsulation helps to isolate changes to a particular module, making it easier to maintain and update the software applications over time. Changes to the internal implementation of a module can be made without affecting the rest of the system, unless major changes made on the provided interfaces.

How To Develop Isolated Module ?

In order to develop isolated module or component you can follow steps specified at below.

1. First we need to define functionality of the component. It should provide only one unit of work. It is important to know when we are moving following steps. We must need to know capacity of our module and what it neccesarry to make it work.
2. Second we need to define the interface for the communication. Our module will be communicate with the system through these interfaces. We will never access central state or other partial state of another module. IO flow must be made by provided interfaces.
3. Then we start to coding 🙂 One of the key detail here is that, when we are developing isolated module/component we need to make sure that usage of the objects should be restricted. If you are developing a library. You should only expose essential objects not the whole objects we defined. Inside of the object we also need to restrict accessbility. So consumer developer can not break the flow of the module. It should be forced to use api provided by the interfaces. It is important to maintain internal security and workflow of the module.
4. Finally we gonna create detailed documentation to show consumer developers how they use our module. It is important for them to know what kind of API our module provides. Then they can use it effectively.

Overall, encapsulation is a powerful way to design software systems that are modular, robust, reusable, and maintainable.