Re: The difference between a "best practice" and a "guideline"

Hey Cody,

+1 to these definitions.  You should probably reference the terminology
section from the spec as well.

- Steve Speicher


On Sat, Jul 6, 2013 at 8:45 PM, Cody Burleson <cody.burleson@base22.com>wrote:

> Team,
>
> As you might recall, in the last face-to-face meeting, there was some
> minor debate as to whether or not we should call the Deployment Guide "LDP
> Best Practices and Guidelines" or just "LDP Best Practices".
>
> I think we all realized that the terms seem sort of redundant, but there
> was a "gut" feeling that a distinction needed to be made. In thinking about
> it more carefully, I do indeed think the distinction is going to be useful,
> providing that it is clarified.
>
> As such, I have created a section in the new version of the guide, which I
> think is helpful. I welcome your review and approval (+1) of this verbiage,
> or comments.
> --- START
> 1.2 Terminology
>
> For the purposes of this document, we have found it useful to make a
> minor, yet important distinction between the term 'best practice' and the
> term 'guideline'. For the purposes of this document, we define and
> differentiate the terms as such:
> *best practice* A good implementation practice (method or technique) that
> has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means
> and that is used as a benchmark. Best practices within this document apply
> specifically to the ways that one should implement technology (i.e. LDP
> servers, clients, and related systems). In this document, the best
> practices might be used as a kind of check-list against which one can
> directly evaluate a system's design and code. Lack of adherence to any
> given best practice, however, does not necessarily imply a lack of quality;
> they are recommendations that are said to be 'best' in most cases and in
> most contexts, but not all. A best practice is always subject to
> improvement as we learn and evolve the Web together. *guideline*A tip, a
> trick, a note, a suggestion, or answer to a frequently asked question.
> Guidelines within this document provide useful information that can advance
> your knowledge and understanding and help you achieve a result, but that
> may not be directly applicable to your implementation or recognized by
> consensus as the 'best' method or technique.
>
> Please see the Linked Data Glossary <http://www.w3.org/TR/ld-glossary/>for definitions to a variety of terms related to the Linked Data sphere of
> knowledge.
>
> --- END
>
> I have also added the following Guideline, which provides an example of
> the difference and is also open for your review and approval (+1) or
> comments:
>
>
> --- START
> 3. Guidelines 3.1 Containers are not limited to same-subject,
> same-predicate triples
>
> The LDP specification defines a Container as "a Linked Data Platform
> Resource (LDPR) representing a collection of same-subject, same-predicate
> triples." This can easily be misconstrued to mean that a Container should
> *only* contain same-subject, same-predicate triples. While Containers *may
> * contain only same-subject, same-predicate triples (i.e. the membership
> subjects and membership predicates of its membership triples), it is free
> to contain others. The definition is meant to clarify only those attributes
> that are directly relavant to the interaction model of a Container, but not
> to limit them to those attributes alone.
>
> It is important to remember that a Linked Data Platform Container (LDPC)
> is also a Linked Data Platform Resource (LDPR) and though it might exist as
> a membership controller, it may also represent additional data that is
> valuable to the agents that access it.
> --- END
>
> --
> Cody Burleson
>
>