What is "connascence"

Connascence \Con*nas"cence\, Connascency \Con*nas"cen*cy\, n. [L. con- + nascentia birth, fr. nascens, p. pr. of nasci to be born.]

1. The common birth of two or more at the same tome; production of two or more together.
   --Johnson.

2. That which is born or produced with another.

3. The act of growing together. [Obs.]
   --Wiseman.

n. 1 The birth of two or more things at the same time. 2 The act of growing together. 3 (context computing English) A relationship between two or more elements of software in which changing one necessitates changing the others in order to maintain overall correctness. 4 (context obsolete English) That which is born or produced with another. 5 (context obsolete English) The act of growing together.

In software engineering, two components are connascent if a change in one would require the other to be modified in order to maintain the overall correctness of the system.

Connascence is a software quality metric invented by Meilir Page-Jones to allow reasoning about the complexity caused by dependency relationships in object oriented design much like coupling did for structured design. In addition to allowing categorization of dependency relationships, connascence also provides a system for comparing different types of dependency. Such comparisons between potential designs can often hint at ways to improve the quality of the software.