That’s a really insightful comment, and also the reason why I think my code quality improved considerably after learning Clojure and F#.
I discovered that immutability in functional programming made it far easier to reason about state - something goes in, and you know exactly what comes out. No verbose checking logic, no bugs because something wasn’t set that should have been.
I’d personally switch coupling and complexity (though it really depends on your definition of the latter). Coupling is usually much less of a problem than you expect it to be, and is easier to identify/rectify in retrospect.
Well, there's certainly a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram of coupling and complexity! The really insidious thing about coupling is that it can transcend module barriers — you can make changes that cause problems in places that seem to be entirely unrelated. Whereas e.g. cyclomatic complexity can be tough to tease apart, but it's at least limited to a single module that you can work on in isolation.
I discovered that immutability in functional programming made it far easier to reason about state - something goes in, and you know exactly what comes out. No verbose checking logic, no bugs because something wasn’t set that should have been.
I’d personally switch coupling and complexity (though it really depends on your definition of the latter). Coupling is usually much less of a problem than you expect it to be, and is easier to identify/rectify in retrospect.