Frameworks change, but the hardest problems in production software don’t. This post explores what senior developers should actually care about in 2026 - judgment, boundaries, domain modeling, performance, testing, and communication - long after the hype fades.
Most engineering mistakes don’t come from ignorance—they come from good intentions applied too early. This post reflects on real-world trade-offs around abstractions, service layers, Clean Architecture, testing, and what I’d do differently today.
The era of the ‘Helper Class’ is over. C# 14 introduces Extension Members, allowing you to add properties, operators, and static methods to external types. Here is how to modernize your codebase.
The ‘Tell, Don’t Ask’ principle helps reduce behavioral dependencies in C# applications by keeping decision-making logic inside the objects that own the data. This leads to cleaner, more maintainable code with better encapsulation and reduced coupling.
Copy-paste coding may seem convenient, but it often causes hidden bugs. Learn practical C# patterns to replace duplication and maintain clean, maintainable code.
Bad middleware doesn’t just break requests, it breaks entire tenants. Learn the anti-patterns to avoid in your ASP.NET Core SaaS architecture and how to fix them.
TL;DR Code reviews should teach, not just catch bugs. Stop nitpicking syntax and start building autonomous developers. Focus on architectural patterns, ask guiding questions instead of giving orders, and eliminate multi-team approval bottlenecks that delay delivery. Good reviews create learning opportunities that scale your team’s expertise. Code reviews shouldn’t be about catching syntax errors or enforcing personal preferences. They’re your best tool for spreading architectural knowledge and building stronger development teams. But most teams get this wrong, creating bureaucratic bottlenecks instead of learning opportunities. ...
Want the PDF version? Click here to download S: Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) Real Meaning: One reason to change, not one “thing” it does. Why It Matters: Avoids “God classes” that block clean PRs & slow refactoring. Personal Analogy: “If you can’t give a clean commit message for the change, it’s violating SRP.” Code Smell: Method/class summary has multiple and/or. Actionable: Before adding a method, ask: “Is this a different concern?” Read more on SRP Short link: bytecrafted.dev/solid-srp O: Open/Closed Principle (OCP) Real Meaning: Add features by extension, not by editing old code. Why It Matters: Keeps legacy code stable; new business rules plug in cleanly. Personal Analogy: “If a new requirement means touching brittle switch statements, you’re not OCP.” Code Smell: Growing switch/if chains for types or behaviors. Actionable: When adding a rule, prefer new handler/class over changing the old one. Read more on OCP Short link: bytecrafted.dev/solid-ocp L: Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP) Real Meaning: Subtypes must behave as expected, no surprises for callers. Why It Matters: Swapping implementations shouldn’t break existing tests or runtime logic. Personal Analogy: “If a subclass throws where the base returns null, that’s an LSP landmine.” Code Smell: Derived classes override with different exceptions, parameters, or semantics. Actionable: Run parent class tests on every subclass; look for broken guarantees. Read more on LSP Short link: bytecrafted.dev/solid-lsp I: Interface Segregation Principle (ISP) Real Meaning: Small, client-focused interfaces, never force unused methods. Why It Matters: Reduces coupling, makes mocks/tests trivial, avoids NotSupportedException landmines. Personal Analogy: “If your interface summary needs bullet points, it’s already too fat.” Code Smell: Implementations with empty or throw NotSupportedException methods. Actionable: Extract groups of related methods into separate interfaces as soon as a client skips one. Read more on ISP Short link: bytecrafted.dev/solid-isp D: Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP) Real Meaning: Depend on abstractions, not concrete implementations, flip the usual control. Why It Matters: Makes business logic testable, swappable, and free of infrastructure glue. Personal Analogy: “If you see new SqlRepo() in a service, that’s DIP going up in flames.” Code Smell: Direct instantiation of dependencies inside business logic. Actionable: Use constructor injection for every external dependency; mock in tests, swap in production. Read more on DIP Short link: bytecrafted.dev/solid-dip Read full series: bytecrafted.dev/series/solid. ...
TL;DR: High cohesion means classes focus on one job. Low coupling means classes don’t depend too much on each other. When I refactor messy code, these two principles guide every decision I make. Why I Focus on Cohesion and Coupling When Refactoring After 10+ years of building enterprise applications, I’ve inherited my fair share of messy codebases. The pattern is always the same: tangled classes doing too much, components that break when you touch something seemingly unrelated, and tests that require half the application to run. ...
TL;DR DIP means depend on abstractions, not concrete implementations. Use interfaces and dependency injection to decouple business logic from details. DIP improves testability, flexibility, and maintainability in C# code. Avoid leaky abstractions, unnecessary interfaces, and service locator anti-patterns. Use C# 12 primary constructors and .NET 8 DI features for clean, modern architecture. The Dependency Inversion Principle helps you turn rigid, tightly-coupled code into flexible, testable systems. Rather than depending on concrete implementations, your high-level modules rely on abstractions. This goes beyond dependency injection, it’s about changing the direction of control flow. ...