Mastering SOLID Principles in Java: Real-World Examples and Best Practices for Scalable Code
A Practical, Code‑Dense Tour of the SOLID Principles in Java By someone who has spent too many Friday nights undoing “harmless” feature requests. Table of Contents Introduction: Why SOLID Still Matters S — Single‑Responsibility Principle O — Open/Closed Principle 3.1 Strategy vs. Giant switch 3.2 Plug‑in Files with ServiceLoader 3.3 Taxes Without Tears (Chain of Responsibility) 3.4 Decorators for Logging, Encryption, & Friends 3.5 Feature Flags with Functional Interfaces L — Liskov Substitution Principle I — Interface Segregation Principle D — Dependency Inversion Principle SOLID Sanity Checklist Final Thoughts: Future‑You Deserves Better Introduction: Why SOLID Still Matters “But we’re microservices now, SOLID is for 2000‑era JavaBeans!” Cute. The truth is: each microservice can still rot into a tiny monolith—hard to test, risky to change, impossible to extend. SOLID is your mold‑resistant paint. Below is a full‑fat walkthrough. Every code snippet is production‑ish and comes with its matching anti‑pattern so you can recognise the smell before your code review does. S — Single‑Responsibility Principle “A class should have one, and only one, reason to change.”

A Practical, Code‑Dense Tour of the SOLID Principles in Java
By someone who has spent too many Friday nights undoing “harmless” feature requests.
Table of Contents
- Introduction: Why SOLID Still Matters
- S — Single‑Responsibility Principle
-
O — Open/Closed Principle
- 3.1 Strategy vs. Giant
switch
- 3.2 Plug‑in Files with
ServiceLoader
- 3.3 Taxes Without Tears (Chain of Responsibility)
- 3.4 Decorators for Logging, Encryption, & Friends
- 3.5 Feature Flags with Functional Interfaces
- 3.1 Strategy vs. Giant
- L — Liskov Substitution Principle
- I — Interface Segregation Principle
- D — Dependency Inversion Principle
- SOLID Sanity Checklist
- Final Thoughts: Future‑You Deserves Better
Introduction: Why SOLID Still Matters
“But we’re microservices now, SOLID is for 2000‑era JavaBeans!”
Cute. The truth is: each microservice can still rot into a tiny monolith—hard to test, risky to change, impossible to extend. SOLID is your mold‑resistant paint.
Below is a full‑fat walkthrough. Every code snippet is production‑ish and comes with its matching anti‑pattern so you can recognise the smell before your code review does.
S — Single‑Responsibility Principle
“A class should have one, and only one, reason to change.”