What is the difference between loose coupling and tight coupling in the object oriented paradigm

Question

Can any one describe the exact difference between loose coupling and tight coupling in Object oriented paradigm

User · Answer

There is a lot of nice answers here using analogies but a friend at work gave me an example that I liked more than all of the ones mentioned here... Eyes and Glasses!

Tight Coupling

Tight coupling would be the eyes. If I want to fix my vision, I'ts very expensive to get an eye transplant and holds a fair amount of risk. But what if the designer (being the human race) found a better way. Add a feature that is loosely coupled to the body so it can be easily changed! (yes.. glasses)

Loose coupling

I can easily replace my glasses without breaking my underlying vision. I can take off the glasses and my vision will be how it was before (not better or worse). Using different pairs of glasses changes how we see the world through our eyes with little risk and easy maintainability.

Summary

So next time someone asks you "who cares if my code is tightly-coupled?" The answer is all about effort to change, effort to maintain and risk of change.

So how is this done in C#? Interfaces and Dependency Injection!

EDIT

This a good example of the Decorator pattern as well, where the the eyes are the class we are decorating by meeting interface requirements but giving different functionality (e.g. sunglasses, reading glasses, magnifying glasses for jewelers e.t.c)

User · Answer

Tight Coupling means one class is dependent on another class  Loose Coupling means one class is dependent on interface rather than class  In tight coupling  there are hard-coded dependency declared in methods  In loose coupling  we must pass dependency externally at runtime instead of hard-coded   Loose couple systems use interface for decreased dependency with class   For example  we have a system that can send output in two or more ways like JSON output  CSV output  etc  Tight Coupled public interface OutputGenerator       public void generateOutput       public class CSVOutputGenerator implements OutputGenerator       public void generateOutput             System out println  quot CSV Output Generator quot             public class JSONOutputGenerator implements OutputGenerator       public void generateOutput             System out println  quot JSON Output Generator quot                In Other Code  we write Output Generator like    public class Class1       public void generateOutput                Here Output will be in CSV-Format  because of hard-coded code             This method tightly coupled with CSVOutputGenerator class  if we want another Output  we must change this method             Any method  that calls Class1 s generateOutput will return CSVOutput  because Class1 is tight couple with CSVOutputGenerator          OutputGenerator outputGenerator   new CSVOutputGenerator            output generateOutput             In the example above  if we want to change the output in JSON  then we need to find and change in the whole code  because Class1 is tightly coupled with the CSVOutputGenerator class  Loose Coupled public interface OutputGenerator       public void generateOutput       public class CSVOutputGenerator implements OutputGenerator       public void generateOutput             System out println  quot CSV Output Generator quot             public class JSONOutputGenerator implements OutputGenerator       public void generateOutput             System out println  quot JSON Output Generator quot                In Other Code  we write Output Generator like    public class Class1       public void generateOutput OutputGenerator outputGenerator               if you want to write JSON  pass object of JSONOutputGenerator  Dependency will be passed externally to this method             if you want to write CSV  pass object of CSVOutputGenerator  Dependency will be passed externally to this method              Due to loose couple with class  we don t need to change code of Class1  because Class1 is loose coupled with CSVOutputGenerator or JSONOutputGenerator class            Any method  that calls Class1 s generateOutput will desired output  because Class1 does not tight couple with CSVOutputGenerator or JSONOutputGenerator class         OutputGenerator outputGenerator   outputGenerator          output generateOutput

User · Answer

Tight coupling is when a group of classes are highly dependent on one another    This scenario arises when a class assumes too many responsibilities  or when one concern is spread over many classes rather than having its own class   Loose coupling is achieved by means of a design that promotes single-responsibility and separation of concerns   A loosely-coupled class can be consumed and tested independently of other  concrete  classes   Interfaces are a powerful tool to use for decoupling  Classes can communicate through interfaces rather than other concrete classes  and any class can be on the other end of that communication simply by implementing the interface   Example of tight coupling   class CustomerRepository       private readonly Database database       public CustomerRepository Database database                this database   database             public void Add string CustomerName                database AddRow  Customer   CustomerName            class Database       public void AddRow string Table  string Value                  Example of loose coupling   class CustomerRepository       private readonly IDatabase database       public CustomerRepository IDatabase database                this database   database             public void Add string CustomerName                database AddRow  Customer   CustomerName            interface IDatabase       void AddRow string Table  string Value      class Database implements IDatabase       public void AddRow string Table  string Value                  Another example here

User · Answer

Explanation without any code Summary Example  The Hat is  quot loosely coupled quot  to the body  This means you can easily take the hat off without making any changes to the person body  When you can do that then you have  quot loose coupling quot   See below for elaboration   Tight coupling  Detailed Example   Think of your skin  It s stuck to your body  It fits like a glove  But what if you wanted to change your skin colour from say white to black  Can you imagine just how painful it would be to peel off your skin  dye it  and then to paste it back on etc  Changing your skin is difficult because it is tightly coupled to your body  You just can t make changes easily  You would have to fundamentally redesign a human being in order to make this possible   Key Point  1  In other words  if you want to change the skin  you would also HAVE TO change the design of your body as well because the two are joined together - they are tightly coupled   God was not a good object oriented programmer  Loose coupling  Detailed Example  Now think of getting dressed in the morning  You don t like blue  No problems  you can put a red shirt on instead  You can do this easily and effortlessly because the shirt is not really connected to your body the same way as your skin  The shirt doesn t know or care about what body it is going on  In other words  you can change your clothes  without really changing your body   That s key point  2  If you change your shirt  then you are not forced to change your body - when you can do that  then you have loose coupling  When you can t do that  then you have tight coupling   That s the basic concept in a nutshell  Why is all of this important  It s important because software changes all the time  Generally speaking you want to be able to easily modify your code  without changing your code  I know that sounds like an oxymoron  but please bear with me  Practical Examples of Coupling when Designing Software  CSV JSON DB Examples  If somebody wants their output in a CSV file rather than JSON etc   or if you want to switch from MySQL to PostGreSQL you should be able to make those changes extremely easily in your code  without having to rewrite the entire class etc  In other words  you do not want to tightly couple your application with a specific database implementation  e g  Mysql  or to a particular output  e g  CSV files   Because  as is inevitable in software  changes will come  When they do come  it s much easier if your parts of your code are loosely coupled  Or if you re using AWS and they start charging too much because of market dominance  you should be able to somewhat easily switch to Google or Azure etc   Practical Example in Manufacturing - Car Parts  Another example to reinforce coupling  If somebody wants their car in black  you shouldn t have to redesign the entire car in order to do that  A car and its spare parts would be a perfect example of a loosely coupled architecture  If you want to replace your engine with a better one  you should be able to simply remove your engine without too much effort and swap it for a better one  If your car only works with Rolls Royce 1234 Engines and no other engines - then your car will is tightly coupled to that engine  Rolls Royce 1234   Some amount of coupling is going to happen  but you should work to minimise it as much as you can  Why  Because when requirements change we should still be able to deliver good quality software  very quickly and we are aided in that goal by loose coupling  Summary In short  loose coupling makes code easier to change  The answers above provide some code which is worth reading at this point  Picture Attribution

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In general Tight Coupling is bad in but most of the time  because it reduces flexibility and re-usability of code  it makes changes much more difficult  it impedes testability etc   Tightly Coupled Object is an object need to know quite a bit about each other and are usually highly dependent on each other interfaces  Changing one object in a tightly coupled application often requires changes to a number of other objects  In small application we can easily identify the changes and there is less chance to miss anything  But in large applications these inter-dependencies are not always known by every programmer or chance is there to miss changes  But each set of loosely coupled objects are not dependent on others   In short we can say  loose coupling is a design goal that seeks to reduce the interdependencies between components of a system with the goal of reducing the risk that changes in one component will require changes in any other component  Loose coupling is a much more generic concept intended to increase the flexibility of a system  make it more maintainable  and make the entire framework more  stable    Coupling refers to the degree of direct knowledge that one element has of another  we can say an eg  A and B  only B change its behavior only when A change its behavior   A loosely coupled system can be easily broken down into definable elements

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When two objects are loosely coupled  they can interact but have very little knowledge of each other       Loosely coupled designs allow us to build flexible OO systems that can handle change   Observer design pattern is a good example for making classes loosely coupled  you can have a look on it in Wikipedia

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It s about classes dependency rate to another ones which is so low in loosely coupled and so high in tightly coupled  To be clear in the service orientation architecture  services are loosely coupled to each other against monolithic which classes dependency to each other is on purpose

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Loose coupling means that the degree of dependency between two components is very low  Example  GSM SIM  Tight coupling means that the degree of dependency between two components is very high  Example  CDMA Mobile

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There are certain tools that provide dependency injection through their library  for example in  net we have ninject Library    If you are going further in java then spring provides this capabilities   Loosly coupled objects can be made by introducing Interfaces in your code  thats what these sources do   Say in your code you are writing   Myclass m   new Myclass      now this statement in your method says that you are dependent on myclass this is called a tightly coupled  Now you provide some constructor injection   or property injection and instantiating object then it will become loosly coupled

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Loose Coupling is the process of giving the dependency your class needs indirectly without providing all the information of the dependency i e in the from of interface  in case tight coupling you directly give in the dependency which is not good way of coding

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An extract from my blog post on coupling   What is Tight Coupling -  As par above definition a Tightly Coupled Object is an object that needs to know about other objects and are usually highly dependent on each other s interfaces    When we change one object in a tightly coupled application often it requires changes to a number of other objects  There is no problem in a small application we can easily identify the change  But in the case of a large applications these inter-dependencies are not always known by every consumer or other developers or there is many chance of future changes    Let   s take a shopping cart demo code to understand the tight coupling   namespace DNSLooseCoupling       public class ShoppingCart               public float Price          public int Quantity           public float GetRowItemTotal                         return Price   Quantity                       public class ShoppingCartContents               public ShoppingCart   items           public float GetCartItemsTotal                         float cartTotal   0              foreach  ShoppingCart item in items                                cartTotal    item GetRowItemTotal                              return cartTotal                       public class Order               private ShoppingCartContents cart          private float salesTax           public Order ShoppingCartContents cart  float salesTax                        this cart   cart              this salesTax   salesTax                     public float OrderTotal                         return cart GetCartItemsTotal      2 0f   salesTax                       Problems with the above example  Tight Coupling creates some difficulties    Here  OrderTotal   methods is give us complete amount for the current items of the carts  If we want to add the discount features in this cart system  It is very hard to do in above code because we have to make changes at every class as it is very tightly coupled

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Tight coupling means classes and objects are dependent on one another  In general  tight coupling is usually not good because it reduces the flexibility and re-usability of the code while Loose coupling means reducing the dependencies of a class that uses the different class directly   Tight Coupling The tightly coupled object is an object that needs to know about other objects and is usually highly dependent on each other s interfaces  Changing one object in a tightly coupled application often requires changes to a number of other objects  In the small applications  we can easily identify the changes and there is less chance to miss anything  But in large applications  these inter-dependencies are not always known by every programmer and there is a chance of overlooking changes  Example       class A          public int a   0         public int getA               System out println  getA   method              return a                  public void setA int aa              if   aa  gt  10                a   aa                     public class B          public static void main String   args              A aObject   new A              aObject a   100     Not suppose to happen as defined by class A  this causes tight coupling            System out println  aObject a value is      aObject a                   In the above example  the code that is defined by this kind of implementation uses tight coupling and is very bad since class B knows about the detail of class A  if class A changes the variable  a  to private then class B breaks  also class A s implementation states that variable  a  should not be more than 10 but as we can see there is no way to enforce such a rule as we can go directly to the variable and change its state to whatever value we decide       Output     aObject a value is  100  Loose Coupling Loose coupling is a design goal to reduce the inter-dependencies between components of a system with the goal of reducing the risk that changes in one component will require changes in any other component  Loose coupling is a much more generic concept intended to increase the flexibility of the system  make it more maintainable and makes the entire framework more stable  Example   class A      private int a   0     public int getA           System out println  getA   method          return a          public void setA int aa          if   aa  gt  10            a   aa         public class B      public static void main String   args          A aObject   new A          aObject setA 100      No way to set  a  to such value as this method call will                             fail due to its enforced rule        System out println  aObject value is      aObject getA              In the above example  the code that is defined by this kind of implementation uses loose coupling and is recommended since class B has to go through class A to get its state where rules are enforced  If class A is changed internally  class B will not break as it uses only class A as a way of communication   Output getA   method aObject value is  0

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If an object s creation existence dependents on another object which can t be tailored  its tight coupling  And  if the dependency can be tailored  its loose coupling  Consider an example in Java   class Car        private Engine engine   new Engine   X COMPANY        this car is being created with  X COMPANY  engine        Other parts      public Car                 implemenation             The client of Car class can create one with ONLY  X COMPANY  engine   Consider breaking this coupling with ability to change that   class Car        private Engine engine         Other members      public Car  Engine engine        this car can be created with any Engine type         this engine   engine             Now  a Car is not dependent on an engine of  X COMPANY  as it can be created with types   A Java specific note  using Java interfaces just for de-coupling sake is not a proper desing approach  In Java  an interface has a purpose - to act as a contract which intrisically provides de-coupling behavior advantage   Bill Rosmus s comment in accepted answer has a good explanation

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In object oriented design  the amount of coupling refers to how much the design of one class depends on the design of another class  In other words  how often do changes in class A force related changes in class B  Tight coupling means the two classes often change together  loose coupling means they are mostly independent  In general  loose coupling is recommended because it s easier to test and maintain   You may find this paper by Martin Fowler  PDF  helpful

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The way I understand it is  that tightly coupled architecture does not provide a lot of flexibility for change when compared to loosely coupled architecture    But in case of loosely coupled architectures  message formats or operating platforms or revamping the business logic does not impact the other end  If the system is taken down for a revamp  of course the other end will not be able to access the service for a while but other than that  the unchanged end can resume message exchange as it was before the revamp

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Loose coupling is and answer to to old style hardcoded dependencies and related issues issues like frequent recompilation when anything changes and code reuse  It stresses on implementing the worker logic in components and avoiding solution specific wire up code there    Loose Coupling   IoC See this for easier explanation

[oop] What is the difference between loose coupling and tight coupling in the object oriented paradigm?

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