The term "best practices" really just means "this worked for us in our situation"
I strongly disagree. Obviously there are always exceptional circumstances, but if something is really a best practice, that means "if you decide not to do it this way, you should have a good reason for that decision".
Now I would agree that people are too quick to call something a "best practice", when really it's just their personal preference (e.g. "always use semicolons in JS", or "never use semicolons in JS").
Well, that's really what I mean. Too many people call their personal habits "best practices", to the point that I just can't be bothered to listen to what the general population of programmers has to say about how I do my own job.
Exactly. If you are going to call something "best practice" then first you need to put it in a formal document, and second, that document should be signed off by a wide panel of experts from a broad cross-section of the relevant industry.
The coding style guide put out by your 12 member startup isn't "best practice" for everyone. It's just best practice for continuing to work there.
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I strongly disagree. Obviously there are always exceptional circumstances, but if something is really a best practice, that means "if you decide not to do it this way, you should have a good reason for that decision".
Now I would agree that people are too quick to call something a "best practice", when really it's just their personal preference (e.g. "always use semicolons in JS", or "never use semicolons in JS").
Well, that's really what I mean. Too many people call their personal habits "best practices", to the point that I just can't be bothered to listen to what the general population of programmers has to say about how I do my own job.
Exactly. If you are going to call something "best practice" then first you need to put it in a formal document, and second, that document should be signed off by a wide panel of experts from a broad cross-section of the relevant industry.
The coding style guide put out by your 12 member startup isn't "best practice" for everyone. It's just best practice for continuing to work there.