Your Code as a Crime Scene, Second Edition, 2nd Edition

Understand Change Coupling Algorithms

The algorithm we’ve used so far isn’t the only kid in town. Change coupling means that some entities change together over time, but there isn’t any formal definition of what change together means. One approach is to add the notion of time to the algorithm, so let’s look more closely at that variant and see how it compares to the simpler option used so far.

Use a Time-Aware Algorithm

By adding the notion of time to the algorithm, the degree of coupling is weighted by the age of the commits. The idea is to prioritize recent modifications over changes in the more distant past. A relationship thus gets weaker with the passage of time.

Intuitively, adding time awareness to the change coupling algorithms makes ...