Kindly Shut Up About 'Best Practices'

And in the category of "Ooo! Ooo! I wish I'd said that!!"

'James Bach argues that the whole notion of "best practices" is intellectually bankrupt.'

My only complaint with this damn fine piece of work (found via that daily grind) is the use of the phrase, "Oompa Loompa moralizing" which I find to be heightest. Heightism is definitely not best practice.

How often I have wanted to quietly strangle someone for using a phrase such as:

"This practice represents a consensus among industry leaders."

Really, if you are ever tempted to argue with someone (or belittle them) or sell to them, or buy from them, on behalf of the phrase 'best practice' then keep the good sense of this fella James Bach in mind.

'mike' on Sun, 17 Jul 2005 22:24:15 GMT, sez:

Jeez, Mr. Bach sure has got hisself exercised about "best practices," innit? Two observations. Observation the first: did someone make him take castor oil as a best practice when he was a kid or something? I have a hard time getting behind so agitated an essay on a dumb ol' phrase.* Observation the second:** let's see what impact Mr. Bach has on the usage of this phrase in IT over the next, say, 5 years. My prediction: 0.00%.

* Please to remember that I am editor, so in my professional life I encounter dumb old phrases with great regularity, and let's face it, they're all dumb. No reason this one's any dumber than the rest.

** See Also: any similar Phillipic about any offending usage you can think of, and how much impact ranting about its stupidness has ever had on its widespread use.

'Derek' on Mon, 18 Jul 2005 18:02:37 GMT, sez:

Saying something is a "best practices" is making an "argument from authority." But that doesn't necessarily mean any of them are false or bad in any way.

'Appeal to Authority (argumentum ad verecundiam)' on Mon, 18 Jul 2005 21:28:10 GMT, sez:

link for 'argument from authority'.

is it logically possible to verify that a practice is 'best'?

you can sometimes prove that a practice is *not* best, but in a sufficiently complex situation -- you cannot ever verify that something is best.

name


website (optional)


enter the word:
 

comment (HTML not allowed)

All viewpoints welcome. But the right to delete any post for any reason is reserved. Don't make me do it. Aim for constructiveness. Comments may be republished, emailed to your loved ones or printed and used as toilet paper. Also, I get particularly nasty on comment spam. It's not worth even trying to post comment spam here -- your html is escaped, and your links are given a rel='nofollow'. By attempting to post a comment, you understand that if the comment is considered spam, at my absolute discretion, your IP address may be used as the target of a prolonged distributed denial of service attack. Your electricity might suddenly stop working. Your car tyres will go mysteriously flat. You will suffer permanent hairloss. Your dreams will be filled with terrifying monsters. And in any case I reserve the right to record and publish your IP address.

 

TimeSnapper_{Know thyself!}

TimeSnapper is a life analysis system that stores and plays-back your computer use. It makes timesheet recording a breeze, helps you recover lost work and shows you how to sharpen your act.

 

NimbleText is a Powerful FREE Tool

Use it for:

• extracting data from text
• manipulating text
• generating code

It makes you look awesome. Use it right now! Go on! Hurry! Don't walk, run!