[sbellware]

Erl and Yourdon's books are definitely still relevant, but they have to be put into historical context and historical perspective at this point in order to extract the enduring value that they have.

I wouldn't literally build a SOA system the way that it was done back in the mid-2000s, so I know what to disregard in a legacy SOA book, and what to give attention to. Same for an OO book from the 90s. But without having that sense of history, and a fluency in fundamentals and principles, the necessary background that puts these books into context and makes them useful today would simply be missing.

It's not uncommon for developers to pick up a "classic" software book and come away with all of the wrong ideas.