Data Access and Transactions

***** *Component Granularity

The number of tasks a component performs determines its granularity.

A fine-grained component consumes and releases resources quickly after completing a task. Components such as these isolate individual tasks in well-defined modules, which are easily reused in other packages. For example, you might design a component to facilitate adding and removing customer records in a database. Because its task is simple, the component can be written efficiently and is easy to debug and maintain. It is also more likely to be reused in other applications that maintain customer data.

A coarse-grained component performs multiple tasks that are often unrelated to each other. For example, a component called PlaceOrder might not only create a new order, but modify inventory and update customer data, too. Coarse-grained components are somewhat harder to debug, and are less likely to be reused.