[SideburnsOfDoom]

> With SOLID the lack of precision renders the whole exercise rather pointless.

If your assumption is that design guidelines can have mathematical precision, then you're going to be perpetually disappointed.

> Instead we argue over what constitutes a single responsibility.

I'm sorry that you can't reach consensus. but IMHO, the false idea that there is a single, mathematically correct answer (and if people differ, therefor someone must be be Wrong, capital W) is often part of the problem, of what stops an agreement on how to move forward pragmatically being reached.

[pydry]

Being vague isn't the only thing wrong with SOLID. The idea that there is "one true way" is partly what bugs me about it (and uncle bob in general).

I don't think that there is a set of design guidelines that can be applied with mathematical precision, but there are a set of code "costs" (like cyclomatic complexity) which can be measured with mathematical precision.

That is to say, all other things being equal, if a pull request non-negligibly reduced cyclomatic complexity I'd be happy to claim that it increased code quality. I don't believe that this idea is false.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> there are a set of code "costs" (like cyclomatic complexity) which can be measured with mathematical precision.

"Responsibility" is IMHO about intent and meaning, which as a human concept is not reducible to measurements of this kind. Cyclomatic complexity is all fine and well, but it cannot tell you if an intent is being met or not. It is silent as to meaning. It's relevant only if you can compare two pieces of code that do the same thing; it's not talking about what that thing should be.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> The idea that there is "one true way" is partly what bugs me about it (and uncle bob in general).

I tend to agree with that, and the original article in general. Mr Martin's approach helped originally, but the dogma now can and should be moved on from.