Oracle PL/SQL Programming, 5th Edition

Modular Code

Modularization is the process by which you break up large blocks of code into smaller pieces (modules) that can be called by other modules. Modularization of code is analogous to normalization of data, with many of the same benefits and a few additional advantages. With modularization, your code becomes:

More reusable

By breaking up a large program or entire application into individual components that “plug-and-play” together, you will usually find that many modules are used by more than one other program in your current application. Designed properly, these utility programs could even be of use in other applications!

More manageable

Which would you rather debug: a 1,000-line program or five individual 200-line programs that call each other as needed? Our minds work better when we can focus on smaller tasks. You can also test and debug on a per-program scale (called unit testing) before individual modules are combined for a more complicated integration test.

More readable

Modules have names, and names describe behavior. The more you move or hide your code behind a programmatic interface, the easier it is to read and understand what that program is doing. Modularization helps you focus on the big picture rather than on the individual executable statements. You might even end up with that most elusive kind of software: self-documenting code.

More reliable

The code you produce will have fewer errors. The errors you do find will be easier to fix because they will be isolated within ...