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Against Best Practices

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279 points ingve | 2 comments | 18 Nov 24 07:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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larsrc ◴[18 Nov 24 11:06 UTC] No.42171384[source]▶
Follow best practices unless you can give a reason not to. "Best practice" is a shorthand for a lot of accumulated knowledge that you don't want to go over again every time. Also following BP makes the code more consistent and thus easier to understand. But when an argument arises, go back to the underpinnings of the best practice and work from there.
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f1shy ◴[18 Nov 24 11:11 UTC] No.42171403[source]▶
Basically if you know exactly why the best practice/rule is in place, and know for sure it does not apply, just skip it. But not before.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Chesterton%27s_fence

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1. muro ◴[18 Nov 24 12:09 UTC] No.42171706[source]▶
That's very reasonable.

‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’

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2. lolinder ◴[18 Nov 24 12:55 UTC] No.42171921[source]▶
> Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

The unfortunate corollary to this is that all retrogression also depends on the unreasonable man. The reasonable person (as defined here) maintains the status quo, for good or ill.