Lately this phrase has been getting a lot of use. It’s hard to bring up problems with “best practices” as the reaction might be framed as if you were advocating “worst practices.” That being said…
What defines “best?” In a recent ALA article, “Educate Your Stakeholders!” they actually give a very good definition.
Best practices are the set of development conventions used by professionals who create content and services for the World Wide Web. (emphasis mine)
Notice that in this scenario it is “conventions” and not a list of specific developer tools or languages, save ECMAScript, which in reality is the only client-side language you can rely on these days.
Do “best practices” developed somewhere else apply locally? This is where you parents might ask you the infamous “jump off a bridge” question. Are you evaluating these practices before putting them into place?
I don’t have a problem with best practices, far from it. I just don’t like ideas getting a free pass from scrutiny because somebody stuck a golden label on them. I like to think that our department has instituted a number of practices that are closer to best than worst. Typically they came to be out of necessity, like with source code management. When you have two people working on one code-base, you need SCM.
Best practices are at the beginning of the “getting better” process, not the end.