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SOLID Principles

  • S - Single Responsibility Principle (reading)
    • “A class or function should only have one reason to change”
    • “Every class should have only one responsibility”
  • O - Open Closed Principle (reading)
    • “Software entities should be open for extension, but closed for modification”
    • Write your code in a way such that when you need to add new functionality, it shouldn’t require changing existing code
  • L - Liskov Substitution Principle
    • “To build software systems from interchangeable parts, those parts must adhere to a contract that allows those parts to be substituted one for another.”
    • In essence, use interfaces and abstract classes
    • See also design by contract
  • I - Interface Segregation Principle
    • "Prevent classes from relying on things that they dont need.”
  • D - Dependency Inversion Principle
    • “Depend on abstractions, not concretions”

Benefits

  • Write code that’s testable
  • Write code that’s easy to understand
  • Write code where things are where they’re expecting to be
  • Write code where classes narrowly do what they were intended to do
  • Write code that can be adjusted and extended quickly
  • Write code that can be adjusted and extended quickly without producing bugs
  • Write code that separates the policy (rules) from the details (implementation)
  • Write code that allows for implementations to be swapped out (e.g. swapping out Email APIs, ORMs, web server frameworks)

Resources

Last update: August 11, 2023
Created: June 3, 2023