"Best practices" are often just "common practices". In other words, this is how we do things here, adapt. Nobody ever investigated how "best" they really are.

"Best practices" are often just "common practices". In other words, this is how we do things here, adapt. Nobody ever investigated how "best" they really are. It's actually the more senior devs who go beyond and investigate how things could be done better. I agree that certain standardisation of practices need to exist. I would rather work with someone who calls even imperfect practices as "standard practices" and had an initiative on the side to explore better options vs working with someone who insisted on "best practices" because of their insecurity and shaky authority. Zealous adherence to "best practices" is actually a good sign of immature developers.