Missing in action: information hiding

Information hiding is characterised by the idea of "secrets"-design and implementation decisions that a software developer hides from the rest of a program. It is part of the foundation of both structured and object-oriented design. In structured design, information hiding produces "black boxes"; in object-oriented design, it gives rise to the concepts of encapsulation and modularity, and is associated with abstraction. However, information hiding doesn't require or depend on any particular design methodology, and you can use it with any design approach. As incremental, evolutionary development styles become more popular, the value of information hiding can only increase.