IVP Has a Proof — The Γ-Equality Partition Is the Unique Cost-Minimizing Modularization (opens in new tab)

How should software be modularized, and why that way? A new preprint answers both questions with a proof — and the answer is the Independent Variation Principle (IVP). Elements with identical change-driver sets belong in the same module; elements with different change-driver sets belong in different modules. A change-driver is an external condition — a regulation, a contract, a protocol specification — whose change forces governed elements to change. The how is the rule itself; the why is tha...