[thinkstoomuch]

I think "Best Practices" are a good thing, so long as you understand why they are best practices and in what situations. They are bad thing when they are simply dogmatic cargo-cult programming without that understanding.

Moreover, I think they're a good thing as a short hand when thinking about problems. You don't have to think about why this is a best practice for every problem you encounter, because if you did, you'd never get anything done. i.e., Why don't we write all of our code in a single main method? Oh yeah, because it becomes a nightmare to find bugs, update to add new features, reuse algorithms inside it...etc...etc. Instead of going through the rationalization every time, the Best Practices rule of thumb generally works out.

Where it doesn't work out is if you've never done the exercise of why they're best practices in the first place. For every best practice I follow, I have understood the justifications and as a result, have developed an intuitive sense for when my situation is the exception to the rule. Or, if my intuition fails me and it gets questioned, I can re-run the exercise and perhaps change my mind.