I had a discussion a while back, I think it was with Grant Fritchey (b/t) but I just can’t remember. And it wasn’t really a discussion, it was reading a blog and passing back and forth a couple of comments. Regardless. What we talked about was using best practices when coding. Not using *, formatting, using ;s etc. Basically doing everything correctly. Why? Because people copy us. I’m not saying I’m anything special (Grant is, just a bit) but people see samples of code online and they copy them to use for themselves. They use these pieces of code as templates and they learn from them. If all of the code you see says SELECT * then guess what, that’s probably what you are going to do.

So here’s my challenge. For myself as well as those of you that have a technical blog, vlog, answer questions on forums, twitter, or anywhere else: Be extremely conscious of your code. Do your best to use all of the best practices you know and that apply. If you don’t like seeing it in someone else’s code, don’t put it in yours.

Good luck and happy blogging!