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Against Best Practices

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279 points ingve | 10 comments | 18 Nov 24 07:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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agentultra ◴[18 Nov 24 14:14 UTC] No.42172433[source]▶
I think the rejection is too strong in this article. The idea of, “best practices,” comes from an established Body of Knowledge. There is one published for software development called the SoftWare Engineering Body of Knowledge or SWEBOK; published by the IEEE.

The author seems to be arguing for nuance: that these “laws,” require context and shouldn’t be applied blindly. I agree.

However they shouldn’t be rejected out of hand either and people recommending them aren’t idiots.

Update: one problem with “best practices,” that I think the article might have unwittingly implied is that most software developers aren’t aware of SWEBOK and are repeating maxims and aphorisms they heard from others. Software development is often powered by folklore and hand waving.

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1. javcasas ◴[18 Nov 24 14:43 UTC] No.42172691[source]▶
I'm one of the devs not aware of the SWEBOK. Searching the internet all I can find is links to "the guide to SWEBOK".

https://ieeecs-media.computer.org/media/education/swebok/swe...

But, you know, I want the whole ordeal. I want the SWEBOK, not the "how to read the SWEBOK". Where can I find it?

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2. desbo ◴[18 Nov 24 15:01 UTC] No.42172910[source]▶
I think that is what you want. From Wikipedia:

> In 2016, the IEEE Computer Society kicked off the SWEBOK Evolution effort to develop future iterations of the body of knowledge. The SWEBOK Evolution project resulted in the publication of SWEBOK Guide version 4 in October 2024.

So the thing called "SWEBOK Guide" is actually the reference text for SWEBOK.

3. GranPC ◴[18 Nov 24 15:02 UTC] No.42172917[source]▶
It looks like SWEBOK Guide, guide to the SWEBOK, and SWEBOK are all used interchangeably. I wonder if they have a chapter on naming conventions.
4. ◴[18 Nov 24 15:03 UTC] No.42172923[source]▶
5. ◴[18 Nov 24 15:40 UTC] No.42173386[source]▶
6. marcosdumay ◴[18 Nov 24 17:03 UTC] No.42174383[source]▶
The books that encode some standardized Xbok are always named "The guide to the Xbok".

The actual BOK isn't supposed to have a concrete representation. It's not supposed to be standardized either, but standard organizations always ignore that part.

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7. agentultra ◴[18 Nov 24 17:12 UTC] No.42174490[source]▶
This. They’re supposed to represent the state of the art which is constantly evolving.
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8. marcosdumay ◴[18 Nov 24 18:12 UTC] No.42175141{3}[source]▶
Well, literally the "state" as in what is the knowledge that everybody shares. We usually call that by something closer to "minimum common denominator".

What people usually call "state of the art" is the best knowledge that is reasonably well known. That is out of scope. If you take a look on this one, it's full of stuff that we knew not to use on the 20th century. This is typical.

9. rfrey ◴[18 Nov 24 18:30 UTC] No.42175384[source]▶
The confusion is because "BOK" is not "book of knowledge" but "body of knowledge". So a "guide" as a canonical source kinda makes sense.
10. ◴[18 Nov 24 20:45 UTC] No.42176796[source]▶