[jonnypotty]

I think it's saying simple, dogmatic rules aren't a good idea and don't reduce complexity. Trusting a dev to not write functions that are unreasonably complex IS a good rule if you spend the time to check and review code.

Fitting your code around a load of "best practices" will basically always increase complexity because you've expanded the list of requirements the code has to conform to.

[sorokod]

I don't think these principles are dogmatic, they rather give you a direction. Can you see that the rule "your code should have single responsibility" is more specific then "write simple code" ?

[herval]

How is “fits in my head” not dogmatic, though?

And how does fitting around practices necessarily increase complexity? If you’re a jr engineer used to write a mess of code to solve a problem, and have to decompose it following a set of principles, you may end up with something SIMPLER very easily.

The whole point about principles is they lead to better outcomes. Problems arise when you confuse them with “rules that can’t be broken” or (as in this post’s case) just refuse to understand them and come up with your own half-assed heuristics - either to justify your code, for lack of experience, or just... to talk at a conference :-)