Yeah, but justify to whom? To the Jr. programmer trying to move up in the company, no matter who he has to throw under the bus to get there? To the entrenched Sr. programmer who uses effort to make up for a lack of skill? To the manager who doesn't know anything about programming?
I would argue that a quorum of engineers would generally agree with whatever is justifiably deviating from best practices. If it makes sense to you because of good engineering reasons, then it should probably make sense to other engineers. Reality perhaps dictates otherwise, but that's what it should strive for.
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Yeah, but justify to whom? To the Jr. programmer trying to move up in the company, no matter who he has to throw under the bus to get there? To the entrenched Sr. programmer who uses effort to make up for a lack of skill? To the manager who doesn't know anything about programming?
You're mixing politics with good engineering.
I would argue that a quorum of engineers would generally agree with whatever is justifiably deviating from best practices. If it makes sense to you because of good engineering reasons, then it should probably make sense to other engineers. Reality perhaps dictates otherwise, but that's what it should strive for.