Separation of concerns

I was introduced to to modular programing at start of my career .e.g. SWIFT ( an online payment gateway kind of banking b2b) had kept bank/branch party code in shared location called BIC ( bank information code ) lookup share directory. I say a common sense .. I was amazed when I entered Java world of patterns.. I was told to think about separation of concerns as if it was attribute of java !.. i latter realize that in good java programing practice separation is more subtle than example. above.. i never like the term separation .... I always like terms common services .. shared services.. i mean modularity may be different but idea is same !! ..