Although I’m sympathetic to your complaint, I think it’s misguided. I can’t think of any design technique or principle that has the kind of objective evidence y

Although I’m sympathetic to your complaint, I think it’s misguided. I can’t think of any design technique or principle that has the kind of objective evidence you’re requesting. And yet, I’m still capable of subjectively evaluating a design. The underlying problem, I think, is that design is a human problem, not a technical one. Design is about making code is to understand and modify. How can its quality be measured? Without an objective criteria for design quality (and stuff like cyclomatic complexity are far too simplistic) then no study of design principles is possible.