Which statement best characterizes fragility in bad software design?

Which statement best characterizes fragility in bad software design?

• A. Things break only in the modified module
• B. The system becomes harder to modify over time
• C. The system automatically compensates for changes
• D. Things break in places unrelated to the change

Answer: (D)

Fragility in software design shows up when small changes ripple unpredictably, causing failures in parts of the system that weren’t touched. When a design is fragile, modules are too tightly coupled, there are hidden dependencies, and changes don’t have clean, well-defined boundaries. That means a tweak in one place can trigger bugs elsewhere because other components relied on implicit assumptions or shared state that wasn’t carried through the change safely. The statement that things break in places unrelated to the change is the clearest sign of this problem: it captures how fragile systems crumble under modifications due to poor isolation and brittle interfaces. If things only break in the modified module, that would indicate better encapsulation and stronger, more stable boundaries. If the system automatically compensates for changes, that points to resilience, not fragility. And if the system becomes harder to modify over time, that speaks to maintainability or rigidity, which is related but not the core behavior of fragility.

Fragility in software design shows up when small changes ripple unpredictably, causing failures in parts of the system that weren’t touched. When a design is fragile, modules are too tightly coupled, there are hidden dependencies, and changes don’t have clean, well-defined boundaries. That means a tweak in one place can trigger bugs elsewhere because other components relied on implicit assumptions or shared state that wasn’t carried through the change safely. The statement that things break in places unrelated to the change is the clearest sign of this problem: it captures how fragile systems crumble under modifications due to poor isolation and brittle interfaces.

If things only break in the modified module, that would indicate better encapsulation and stronger, more stable boundaries. If the system automatically compensates for changes, that points to resilience, not fragility. And if the system becomes harder to modify over time, that speaks to maintainability or rigidity, which is related but not the core behavior of fragility.