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Against Best Practices

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279 points ingve | 3 comments | 18 Nov 24 07:45 UTC | HN request time: 0s | 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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ohthatsnotright ◴[18 Nov 24 11:17 UTC] No.42171433[source]▶
Often what is one developers "best practice" is another's "anti-pattern" because a lot of this is just arbitrary.
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Angostura ◴[18 Nov 24 11:39 UTC] No.42171558[source]▶
If it is arbitrary, it’s “standard practice”.
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1. lolinder ◴[18 Nov 24 13:06 UTC] No.42171983[source]▶
Which still has immense value.

It's standard practice to install outlets with NEMA connectors in North American buildings. Sure, you could technically swap those out with a more optimal connector that is "better" (one that prevents electricity from flowing while the plug is partially exposed, for example), but using the standard practice is best practice for human-shaped reasons that are often not apparent to early-career engineers.

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2. dambi0 ◴[18 Nov 24 17:23 UTC] No.42174610[source]▶
I’m a bit confused with the analogy here. Would the non NEMA outlets work with my existing things or is the implication that they wouldn’t?
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3. lolinder ◴[18 Nov 24 23:02 UTC] No.42178111[source]▶
They wouldn't, but about half of the developers commenting here would do the equivalent of switching from NEMA to something else on the grounds that the something else is better.