I love the line in the movie where the Mexican guy in the possie says "Badges, we don't need no stinkin' badges".

Dr Neil's post on rules caught my eye. One of the quickest ways to start a flame war on any email forum is to start discussing coding rules. Many people have come to the conclusion that rules aren't relevant.

The line I often hear is "it doesn't matter what you do as long as it's consistent".

But consistent rubbish is still rubbish.

I feel this is a major cop-out and particularly disservices newcomers to the industry. If we tell a newcomer that asks how to best do something to "just be consistent", we haven't done them a favour at all.

Greg