SOLID Principles

I recently stumbled onto a collection of articles written by an author named Robert Martin way back in 1996 for a now defunct magazine called "The C++ Report" (The C++ Report was evidently followed by the "Journal of Object-Oriented Programming", which doesn't seem to exist anymore either). These articles address core principles of object oriented design, and seem as true today as they were all those years ago. Of course, a few of the references Martin used in his articles may be a bit outdated, but the spirit and intent behind the articles is clear, and unlike a lot of articles I read that were written much more recently than Martin's articles, these articles are unmuddied by the complexities and interactions between all of the various technologies, subtechnologies, wrappers, APIs, etc that exist these days.

Martin (affectionately known as "Uncle Bob") wasn't really inventing any new concepts with his articles; rather, he was simply synthesizing information created by others into a paradigm that was appropriate for the time and available technology. But Robert Martin's articles were so successful and widely adopted, that they are still at the core of most object oriented design that is in use today, including later concepts, such as design patterns. Evidently, Martin is still at it, owning a company called "Object Mentor" which does company/enterprise-level coaching of these, and other object oriented design principles. He's also written a number of books on the topic, as well. Today, Martin is considered a legend in the programming world. He even has a blog, which can be found at http://blog.objectmentor.com/articles/category/uncle-bobs-blatherings

I'm about half way through reading this series of articles Martin wrote, and the information I've gleened from them have drastically (or at least, significantly) impacted how I approach design and refactoring (in fact, some of the principles demonstrated in these articles have sparked several refactoring sessions). Martin's SOLID principles are made up of: Single Responsibility Principle, The Open-Closed Principle, The Liskov Substitution Principle, the Interface Segregation Principle, and the Dependency Inversion Principle.

If nothing else my next few blogs will be a way for me to take the information I gathered from the core OOP principles Uncle Bob put forward (hereafter referred to as SOLID principles). And perhaps, someone out there will read them, and be compelled to apply them in their own programming.