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How much are SOLID principles in OOP programming (and JVM languages specifically) just a mindless following of a set of ideas that aren't always the best solution? (programming.dev)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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As a Java engineer in the web development industry for several years now, having heard multiple times that X is good because of SOLID principles or Y is bad because it breaks SOLID principles, and having to memorize the "good" ways to do everything before an interview etc, I find it harder and harder to do when I really start to dive into the real reason I'm doing something in a particular way.

One example is creating an interface for every goddamn class I make because of "loose coupling" when in reality none of these classes are ever going to have an alternative implementation.

Also the more I get into languages like Rust, the more these doubts are increasing and leading me to believe that most of it is just dogma that has gone far beyond its initial motivations and goals and is now just a mindless OOP circlejerk.

There are definitely occasions when these principles do make sense, especially in an OOP environment, and they can also make some design patterns really satisfying and easy.

What are your opinions on this?

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[–] 3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

Have you never heard of the concept of serialization? It's weird for you to bring up the Nintendo DS and not be familiar with that, as it's a very important topic in game development. Outside of game development, it's used a lot in network code. Even javascript has ArrayBuffer.

Well cite me one then

I've personally built small homebrew projects that run on both Nintendo DS and Windows/Linux. Is that really so hard to imagine? As long as you design proper abstractions, it's pretty straightforward.

Generally speaking, the best way to write optimal code is to understand your data first. You can't do that if you don't even know what format your data is in!

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    What on earth did you run on a DS and windows? I'm curious! BTW we used hard coded in memory structures, not serialising stuff, you'd have a hard time doing that perfectly well on the DS IMO.

    Still only a small homebrew project so IMO my point still stands.

    As for understanding your data, you need to know the size of the int on your system to set up the infamous INT32 to begin with!

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    What on earth did you run on a DS and windows? I’m curious!

    A homebrew game, of course! Well, more like a game engine demo. Making game engines is more fun than making games.

    I'm not sure why you find it so hard to believe, as it's pretty straight-forward to build a game on top of APIs like

    void DrawRectangle(...);
void DrawSprite(...);

    Then implement them differently on each target platform.

    BTW we used hard coded in memory structures, not serialising stuff, you’d have a hard time doing that perfectly well on the DS IMO.

    You mean embedded binary data? That's still serialization, except you're using the compiler as your serializer. Modern serialization frameworks usually have a DSL that mimics C struct declarations, and it's not a coincidence. Look up any zero-copy serialization tool and you'll find that they're all basically trying to accomplish the same thing: load a binary blob directly into a native C struct, but do it portably (which embedded binary data is not)

    As for understanding your data, you need to know the size of the int on your system to set up the infamous INT32 to begin with!

    Nah, that's what int32_t is for. The people who built the toolchain did that for me.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah that's how we did it, loading a "blob" into packed structs :-)

    I'm with you with the int32_t, that's totally the way to go IMO, I guess my rant about #define INT32 got lost somewhere :-)

    Actually got myself a job coding DS&Wii back in the day with my DS streaming tile engine (it is funnier to make engines), "use 64k tiles with the native 256 tile engine". I had a little demo where you wandered around and slayed skeletons Diablo 2 like, backpack and items included. Built with the unofficial retroengineered dev kit. Got my hands on the official docs after that!

    Fun times.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    Actually got myself a job coding DS&Wii back in the day with my DS streaming tile engine

    Damn that's sick. Landing a real job from homebrew work is the coolest backstory for a game developer. I've got a couple of hb projects I'm proud of, but in the world of Unity and Unreal I don't see it as being a particularly in-demand skill set.

    ...not that I'd want to work for a game dev company in 2025 lol

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    I did have a couple of years of gamedev under the belt, but only j2me java mobile games, so laying my hands on a nintendo dev kit was one of those one in a lifetime highs for me. Still get a tingle when I think about it ☺️.

    You're right about todays landscape though 😑, between abusing A to AAA companies, dark patterns and microtransactions 🤢. Such a shame. I should get into indie games more but they all feel like they were made for unity/UE, so they all feel a bit the same (where are syrategy games, spinoffs off Worms, lemmings, ...). But maybe I'm missing out, there is so much rubbish to sift through.

    Cheers!

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