English

Encapsulation theory fundamentals

Software Engineering 2008-07-29 v1

Abstract

This paper proposes a theory of encapsulation, establishing a relationship between encapsulation and information hiding through the concept of potential structural complexity (P.S.C.), the maximum possible number of source code dependencies that can exist between program units in a software system. The P.S.C. of various, simple systems is examined in an attempt to demonstrate how P.S.C. changes as program units are encapsulated among different configurations of subsystems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0807.4224,
  title  = {Encapsulation theory fundamentals},
  author = {Edmund Kirwan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0807.4224},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

33 pages, 35 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:04:36.130Z