Save Me From the Good People
Years ago, I used to listen to KMOX (1120kHz, St. Louis, MO)'s Jim White at night.
One of Jim's signature phrases is "Save me from the good people." By "good people" he meant people with very good intentions, who often gives advises or comments based on a set of doctrines they can cite from very authoritative sources.
There are plenty of them in software development. From the Hungarian notation zealots, to the coding style police, to the let's design first methodologists, to the "I spent five years establishing the enterprise architecture---by gosh you are not going to step outside of it by one inch" architects.
They are all good ideas. But they don't always lead to successful results. The ideas usually come from experiences of others in an earlier time, which seems good and sensible in their particular environment. But as the good idea spreads, it become more crystallized, distilled, and catch-phrase-ized. The context gets lost in transit, and unsuspecting newcomers would take it as universal truth.
Have you worked with some of these good people (a.k.a. smart people) on a project or two?