RE: [External] : Re: What's that line again about 'best practices'?

Jeff has made a reasonable realpolitik response.  

The bitter old man unreasonable response approximating “get off my lawn, you’re trampling my daisies and dandelions, and I don’t want a lawn you can only get with chemical fertilizer and pesticides” is where I am at.  

Jeff’s position is probably more reasonable: Translate the literally harmful buzzword’s meaning into something at least benigh.  

To that practical position I would only add:  

This is what we think you should be doing at least as a starting point unless you have a good reason for starting somewhere else or making a change as conditions change.  

That was what the ?old? ?ancient? Oracle VLDB and MOSES attempted to do. I truly wish we had settled on a less obnoxiously arrogant industry term (that has spread beyond our industry, usually with the harmful, stifling effect and the promotion of “if I do this, my ass is covered” attitudes.  

Jeff’s response is probably the most practical, especially if we can at least remember to laugh with our eyes whenever someone at a microphone says “best practice” with a straight face and no air quotes.  

That is my picture of Jeff’s face (laughing politely only with his eyes) when he hears “best practice.”  

Jeff has been and remains a force for Good in the use of Oracle technology.  

mwf  

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Smith Sent: Friday, October 28, 2022 8:16 AM
To: christopherdtaylor1994_at_gmail.com; mwf_at_rsiz.com Cc: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: RE: [External] : Re: What's that line again about 'best practices'?  

Our ‘Best Practices’ are more like  

‘What we think you should be doing’  

But we know what folks are googling is ‘Best Practices’  

I also hate this term, but it’s what the industry has landed on.  

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org <oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org> On Behalf Of Chris Taylor Sent: Friday, October 28, 2022 8:11 AM
To: mwf_at_rsiz.com
Cc: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: [External] : Re: What's that line again about 'best practices'?  

Thank you Mark!  

On Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:28 PM Mark W. Farnham <mwf_at_rsiz.com> wrote:

James Morle suggested something along the lines that they should be renamed Usual Practices (or something like that). I’ve called them Standard Minimum Starting Points and I pointed out that the only best practice I know of is to not allow things to be called best practices. Calling something a “best practice” tends to stifle attempts to do better.  

IF you can get something called a best practice into your service delivery standards and you implement that practice, you have a legal defense whether or not the users can do anything or not.  

Nothing can be proven to be a best practice. Things called best practice are sometimes really just good enough to be acceptable.  

You’ve probably caught the drift I believe “best practice” is a harmful term. Some things called “best practices” are really quite good initial starting points or usual practices that are just fine unless you need something better.  

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Chris Taylor Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2022 1:59 PM To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: OT: What's that line again about 'best practices'?  

Mark or someone has an idiom I want to save this time....

Something about best practices being written by people who don't have to support them or something .....  

Chris  

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