12.1. Reducing Complexity with Decomposition

The most effective way of designing an application architecture is by decomposing an application into separate components. This is the underlying theme in all modern forms of design and is the foundation of object-oriented development. Component based architectures are built on the concept of modules, which can be developed, changed, or upgraded independently of the entire application. This builds a high level of abstraction, and allows applications to be developed in team environments. It also produces code that is more maintainable then applications with a centralized design.

However, application architects should be wary of the amount of granularity used with component-based design. While decomposing an application into separate components has many benefits, separating components into too granular of a framework can actually make an application more complex. The key is to have a sound organization to the separation of components, and to size the level of component granularity with the size of both the application and the development team.