{"id":1856,"date":"2013-02-17T16:05:06","date_gmt":"2013-02-17T23:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/?p=1856"},"modified":"2018-01-09T17:34:20","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T22:34:20","slug":"principles-are-timeless-best-practices-are-fads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/principles-are-timeless-best-practices-are-fads\/","title":{"rendered":"Principles Are Timeless Best Practices Are Fads"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a huge difference between a principle and a best practice.\\n\\nBest practices are subjective and depend largely on context, while principles are eternal and universal.<\/strong>\\n\\n\"time\"<\/a>\\n\\nAfter writing The More I Know The Less I Know<\/a>, I received a few emails talking about how there are absolute best practices that should always be followed in software development.\\n\\nI had already intended to write about principles, but that confusion made it clear to me that there should be a distinction made between best practices and principles.\u00a0 We don\u2019t want to throw the baby out with the bath water.\\n\\n<\/p>\n

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Looking at some examples of best practices<\/h2>\n

\\n\\nFirst let\u2019s take a look at some software development best practices, then we\u2019ll contrast them to principles to better get an idea of the difference.\\n\\nOne of the most common best practices today in software development is the idea of unit testing.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about how I have my doubts<\/a> about blindly following this best practice in the past, but whether or not we should follow it<\/a>, is not what I am concerned with today.\\n\\nUnit testing is extremely contextual.\u00a0 What I mean by this, is that almost anyone would agree that there are a certain set of circumstances that makes unit testing have value.<\/strong>\\n\\nIf you work in an environment where the execution of unit tests takes a really long time, or you are developing your software in a waterfall approach where you have a big upfront design and detailed requirements, unit testing starts to lose value rapidly.\\n\\nBut rather than get trapped into the argument of when unit testing loses its value, it is better to address when it has the highest value\u2014we are much more likely to agree there.\\n\\nUnit testing has the highest value when we are working in agile environments where changes are being introduced into a software system rapidly and refactoring is taking place.<\/strong>\u00a0 It also greatly increases in utility when you are able to execute and write the tests quickly, because that feedback loop makes it much easier to write the tests in a step by step approach, especially when doing TDD.\\n\\n\"Businessman\"<\/a>There are plenty of other best practices that have fallen out of favor, like heavily commenting code and documenting requirements with UML diagrams, but context also greatly played a part in the value of these practices.\\n\\nWhen most developers wrote very short variable and method names, comments were really important.\u00a0 Before Agile processes became prevalent, getting detailed requirements upfront was critical.\\n\\n<\/p>\n

But, most best practices are good!<\/h2>\n

\\n\\nYes, you are right, most best practices do apply pretty broadly and are generally helpful in a large number of different contexts.\\n\\nFor example, it is considered a best practice to use a source control system and it doesn\u2019t seem like there are many situations where this wouldn\u2019t be the case.\\n\\nSo doesn\u2019t that make it a concrete rule or a principle?\\n\\nNo, it is still too specific to be generally applied in all cases and the act of putting your code in source control does nothing to improve the quality of your software or software product.\\n\\nIf you were to blindly follow any best practice and not apply that best practice in a way that brings out the underlying principle, you would be very unlikely to actually receive any benefit.<\/strong>\\n\\nYou see, most best practices are actually derived from universally applicable principles that never change.<\/strong>\u00a0 That is why most best practices are good.\\n\\nThe problem is applying the best practice itself in no way assures the benefit of its underlying principle.\\n\\nTo put it plainly, there is something greater at work that makes it a good idea to check your code into a source control system.\u00a0 It is entirely possible to follow the action, but completely miss the spirit of the action.\\n\\nMore and more today, I see software development teams that are:\\n\\n<\/p>\n