Finding Balance with the SOLID Principles

Kevlin Henney’s talk from YOW is a great deconstruction of the SOLID principles, delving into what they really say as opposed to what people think they say, and what we can learn from them in a nuanced, balanced way.

Far too often we take these rules as absolutes under the mistaken assumption that if we always follow them, our software will be more maintainable. As an industry we seem to be seeking a silver bullet for architecture that solves all our problems just like we’ve searched for a silver bullet language for so long. There is value in these principles and we should take the time to learn from them, but they are just tools in our toolkit that we need to learn not only how to use, but when.