4 ms·
The best best practices I've heard usually have stories behind them. Someone did or didn't do X, and bad thing Y happened. Therefore we do or don't do X in the
by sowbug 5y ago
The best best practices I've heard usually have stories behind them. Someone did or didn't do X, and bad thing Y happened. Therefore we do or don't do X in the hopes of avoiding Y again.
The danger is that X keeps happening without the story of Y also being passed along; otherwise it turns into the Five Monkeys problem (https://intersol.ca/news/organizational-culture-and-the-5-monkeys-experiment/ https://intersol.ca/news/organizational-culture-and-the-5-mo...).
I'm not disagreeing with the author's friend's point. But at least if there's a story attached to the practice, then it's less of an appeal to authority and more of collective wisdom that can continue to evolve.
- midnightclubbed 5y agoSometimes those historically best practices become outdated but clung onto as doctrine by programmers who let experience get in the way of evolution. What may have been true 10 years ago may no longer be accurate or important but is still held up as a best practice today. If allowed to evolve then we are all good but finding the correct speed of evolution (and helping everyone evolve at a similar speed) is harder than ideal. Flip-side of that is the organization or programmer that blindly chases the new.