decomposition (computer science) decomposition in computer science also known as factoring is breaking a complex problem or system into parts that are easier to conceive understand program and maintain overview there are different types of decomposition defined in computer sciences in structured programming algorithmic decomposition breaks a process down into welldefined steps structured analysis breaks down a software system from the system context level to system functions and data entities as described by tom demarco objectoriented decomposition on the other hand breaks a large system down into progressively smaller classes or objects that are responsible for some part of the problem domain according to booch algorithmic decomposition is a necessary part of objectoriented analysis and design but objectoriented systems start with and emphasize decomposition into classes more generally functional decomposition in computer science is a technique for mastering the complexity of the function of a model a functional model of a system is thereby replaced by a series of functional models of subsystems decomposition topics decomposition paradigm a decomposition paradigm in computer programming is a strategy for organizing a program as a number of parts and it usually implies a specific way to organize a program text usually the aim of using a decomposition paradigm is to optimize some metric related to program complexity for example the modularity of the program or its maintainability most decomposition paradigms suggest breaking down a program into parts so as to minimize the static dependencies among those parts and to maximize the cohesiveness of each part some popular decomposition paradigms are the procedural modules abstract data type and object oriented ones the concept of decomposition paradigm is entirely independent and different from that of model of computation but the two are often confused most often in the cases of the functional model of computation being confused with procedural decomposition and of the actor model of computation being confused with object oriented decomposition decomposition diagram decomposition structure negative nodenumbered context static dynamic and requirements models for systems partition functions and use scenarios mapping to requirements and goals a decomposition diagram shows a complex process organization data subject area or other type of object broken down into lower level more detailed components for example decomposition diagrams may represent organizational structure or functional decomposition into processes decomposition diagrams provide a logical hierarchical decomposition of a system code refactoring componentbased software engineering dynamization duplicate code event partitioning how to solve it integrated enterprise modeling personal information management readability subroutine wikimedia commons has media related to decomposition diagrams object oriented analysis and design 