What does the abbreviation SOLID mean in the context of software development?

SOLID is a set of five principles of object-oriented programming aimed at creating flexible, extendable, and maintainable systems.

Deciphering:

• S — Single Responsibility Principle: a class should have only one reason to change, meaning it should perform only one task.
• O — Open/Closed Principle: software entities should be open for extension but closed for modification.
• L — Liskov Substitution Principle: objects of subclasses should be interchangeable with objects of the base class without affecting the correctness of the program.
• I — Interface Segregation Principle: clients should not depend on interfaces they do not use; it is better to have several specific interfaces than one general interface.
• D — Dependency Inversion Principle: high-level modules should not depend on low-level modules; both should depend on abstractions.

Applying these principles helps create code that is easier to test, maintain, and extend without the risk of introducing errors.