Coarse-grained vs fine-grained

Question

What is the difference between coarse-grained and fine-grained?

I have searched these terms on Google, but I couldn't find what they mean.

Answer 1

Coarse-grained and Fine-grained both think about optimizing a number of servicess. But the difference is in the level. I like to explain with an example, you will understand easily.

Fine-grained: For example, I have 100 services like findbyId, findbyCategry, findbyName...... so on. Instead of that many services why we can not provide find(id, category, name....so on). So this way we can reduce the services. This is just an example, but the goal is how to optimize the number of services.

Coarse-grained: For example, I have 100 clients, each client have their own set of 100 services. So I have to provide 100*100 total services. It is very much difficult. Instead of that what I do is, I identify all common services which apply to most of the clients as one service set and remaining separately. For example in 100 services 50 services are common. So I have to manage 100*50 + 50 only.

Answer 2

From Wikipedia (granularity):

Granularity is the extent to which a system is broken down into small parts, either the system itself or its description or observation. It is the extent to which a larger entity is subdivided. For example, a yard broken into inches has finer granularity than a yard broken into feet.

Coarse-grained systems consist of fewer, larger components than fine-grained systems; a coarse-grained description of a system regards large subcomponents while a fine-grained description regards smaller components of which the larger ones are composed.

Answer 3

In the context of services:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Granularity_Principle

By definition a coarse-grained service operation has broader scope than a fine-grained service, although the terms are relative. The former typically requires increased design complexity but can reduce the number of calls required to complete a task.

A fine grained service interface is about the same like chatty interface.

Answer 4

Coarse-grained granularity does not always mean bigger components, if you go by literally meaning of the word coarse, it means harsh, or not appropriate. e.g. In software projects management, if you breakdown a small system into few components, which are equal in size, but varies in complexities and features, this could lead to a coarse-grained granularity. In reverse, for a fine-grained breakdown, you would divide the components based on their cohesiveness of the functionalities each component is providing.

Answer 5

Coarse-grained: A few ojects hold a lot of related data that's why services have broader scope in functionality. Example: A single "Account" object holds the customer name, address, account balance, opening date, last change date, etc. Thus: Increased design complexity, smaller number of cells to various operations

Fine-grained: More objects each holding less data that's why services have more narrow scope in functionality. Example: An Account object holds balance, a Customer object holds name and address, a AccountOpenings object holds opening date, etc. Thus: Decreased design complexity , higher number of cells to various service operations. These are relationships defined between these objects.

Answer 6

In term of dataset like a text file ,Coarse-grained meaning we can transform the whole dataset but not an individual element on the dataset While fine-grained means we can transform individual element on the dataset.