Passionate, not dogmatic
Jay Fields recently posted an excellent article entitled Passionate, not Dogmatic. He starts by saying:
In the past 3.5 years I had the opportunity to interact with some of the smartest people in our industry. I consider many of those smart people to be among the best software developers in the world. Unfortunately, some of the smart people I met weren't much more than assholes. The big difference I noticed between the two groups was -- The assholes were dogmatic, while the best developers were passionate
He then continues to say:
I used to be dogmatic. I have no problem admitting it. My earlier writing is clearly arrogant and often shortsighted. Part of the problem was lack of experience. When you take an immature industry and give a platform to someone with limited heuristics you are bound to receive solutions with limited applicability.
As I gained more experience I realized that what I considered to be best practices were only best practices within certain contexts. I also realized that presenting something as the "one true way" only benefited those that worked within exactly the same context that I worked. People who follow my advice when it doesn't apply to their context must fail. The advice isn't flawed, but it is incomplete. You need to see the full picture.
This second part is important. It is why I struggle to see the value in posting code samples or processes on different projects, because without the bigger context, it simply won't make sense. The platform of the Internet makes this harder, as people want instant answers and gratification, and usually aren't willing to try and read something with context to give the big picture.