Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!xanth!mcnc!thorin!unc!shan
From: shan@unc.cs.unc.edu (Yen-Ping Shan)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Surface area for software
Keywords: surface area, software modularity
Message-ID: <8026@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 3 May 89 22:06:42 GMT
Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu
Lines: 20


Sorry about the confusion raised by my previous posting.  English is not my
native language.  I didn't realize that "surface area" has a more common
meaning.  Let me try to get it straight this time.

Cox in his book, "Object Oriented Programming" p. 16, defines the "surface
area" as "the number of things that must be understood and properly dealt
with for one programmer's code to function correctly in combination with
another's."

What I am interested in is:
1. Who invented the term "surface area?"  Under what context?
2. Is there a more precise definition?
3. Is there a systematic way to compute surface area?  (So that we can
	say, for example, the surface area between module A and B is 10 and
	the surface area between module B and C is 100, therefore B and C
	are more closely coupled than A and B.)

Thanks.
				---Shan---