[marcosdumay]

Well, if the phrase on the title is true for you, you are working with some really unprincipled principles.

They shouldn't. Principles are something that guides practice. Like the principles of aerodynamics guided the evolution of the airplane even if they weren't fully known at the time. (And this example on the article is just wrong.)

If you use the same word for something that is derived from practice (like best practices, on the HTML example), you will lack one for the really fundamental stuff.

[ajb]

I think it's more of a loop. Principles guide practice, but practice may cause you to discover that your principles were mistaken of limited. Eg, the discovery of quantum effects.

A more worked-through explanation of this can be found by reading up on "reflective equilibrium" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflective_equilibrium

[realusername]

I'm not sure why you picked physics as an example which probably is the single field where the most principles were developed from mimicking practice and observation, aerodynamics included.

[karmakaze]

This whole post could be a distinction without a difference. Like others say, it's a loop. The same could be better expressed as do what's pragmatic. Have principles that are formed from experience and apply them judiciously. Then we don't have to argue definitions or which is more important, etc.