What is the theory of orthogonal designs?
I was reading a book about the philosophy of Unix programming and it mentioned the term orthogonal a few times. I did a search on it. There are many definitions of orthogonal. But as it applied to the book, it meant “interconnected but neatly separated modules”. For instance, all systems in your car are in some way interconnected, but accelerating doesn’t make your windshield wipers move faster, your headlights don’t brown out when you turn your turn-signal on etc. A modern car is a good example of orthogonal design.
