Re: Best practice or cargo cult?

[girarde]

in reply to Best practice or cargo cult?

"Cargo cult programming" is a misleading pejorative, in that real cargo cults are doing something that worked before, even though it is no longer effective, like the guys who worship Prince Philip, thinking he's a local Chinese guy from their island who emigrated and married way, WAY up.

[Anonymous Monk]

real cargo cults are doing something that worked before, even though it is no longer effective

It's not quite even that. Cargo cults aren't just doing what worked before; they're a combination of a valid scientific methodology, and a belief system ("voodoo") which essentially suggests that function follows form, and not vice versa.

Once you believe in voodo, and discount reality to maintain your beliefs, cargo cults make a twisted kind of sense. Then again, once you're willing to discount reality, just about any religion or crazy belief system can make a twisted kind of sense, or at least redefined "sense" until it fits. :-)