Java™ Design: Objects, UML, and Process

11.4. Subsystem Development

Essentially, we can think of subsystems as minisystems in and of themselves. Because of this, when we are designing subsystems, we should perform each of the significant activities we would perform when developing a system. Of additional interest, however, is that subsystems promote parallel development. Because a subsystem emphasizes the management of incoming dependencies, and all other classes in our system are dependent only on the subsystem interface, after we've specified the interface for the subsystem, the implementation is only a concern for those constructing the internal components of the subsystem. Those developers who need to use the subsystem, however, can work as if the subsystem already had been developed. ...