Platinum Rule

I don't believe that there are best practices in software development. It is still a fairly young field. Things are constantly changing. Even the established standards are always being challenged for a better method. If there does exist a true best practices list that everyone agree on, the items would be rather vague and general.

However, there is one practice that I think is the most valuable of all that exists around despite being vague and general. And that is to

Be Consistent

It may seem contradictory to the ever-changing landscape I just described, and may also sound hypocritical of me to say that after mentioning that I change my ways quite often in my introduction. It is a practice I fail to follow most of the time, I admit. Still, it would be the biggest, and likely only, advice I would give anyone.

At the very least, keep the programming styles and decisions consistent across a single project. Whatever those are. Even if you know you will hate them later on.

Why Platinum Rule? Well, because Golden Rule is taken.