[Sigia-l] what are best practices (was OT: Library Thing)

[Listera]

Eric Reiss:

> Personally, I'm rather partial to the notion that traffic stops at a
> red light. This is a good (and literal) "rule of the road".

See, even something as "obvious" to you as this best practice can be upended
by actual applications whereby traffic lights were eliminated in a town to
produce smoother and safer traffic flows! (Something we discussed in this
very forum a while back I believe.)
 
> There's nothing wrong with rules of the road, rules of thumb, or
> heuristics - and most of us call these kinds of things "best
> practices."

Why? They have perfectly good names by themselves.

It's much easier to argue against guidelines, recommendations, etc. It's
very stifling when an IT bureaucrat throws the "best practices" ruse at you
to sit on his risk-averse butt and dampen your creativity and pursuit of
excellence. Not to mention your dedicated application of contextual
constraints to the specific project at hand.
 
> I think this thread got off track because - judging by Ziya's
> examples - there is confusion between "best practice" and
> "innovation". 

I don't think there's confusion. The former prevents the latter. :-)

> These are the oil and water of our industry. If you do what Jakob says, you
> will never innovate. If your innovation doesn't solve a problem, it will
> invariable cause one.

An innovation that doesn't solve a problem is an oxymoron.

---- 
Ziya

Best Practices,
For when you've run out of your own ideas and context.