>I know you were _partly_ joking, but...:)
>
>>1. The rules change, and you do not have the time to know what the lastest fad is.
>
>No good programmer follows rules because they are the fad. In this industry, however, the participants are smart enough that most of the fads are intelligent (take patterns, for example).

Some plants simply don't catch root. Remember the reminiscences of Foundation Read just the other day? Or the supposed behavior of Enter key on a form?

I think we'd have to weed out some M$'s (and others) marketing fads from the real rules. Are, for one, GUI guidelines hard rules? If they are, why don't they fully apply to the DB world, and why don't they apply to M$ Encarta?