> Julia Evans once said "behind every best practice is a horror story." If you don't understand a Best Practice, look for the horror story that inspired it. It might make the best practice make sense. It might turn out to be something that's completely irrelevant to you, and then you can feel comfortable doing a different practice instead.
This is how I think of Chesterton's Fence. A lot of people read it as saying "don't tear something out until you know why it's there", which is, I think, half of the point. But the other half of the message of Chesterton's Fence is that once you can explain to him why the fence is there, you're entitled to tear it out if you still think it's a good idea. The point isn't to avoid changing things, it's to always understand the reasoning behind the status quo before changing it.
This is how I think of Chesterton's Fence. A lot of people read it as saying "don't tear something out until you know why it's there", which is, I think, half of the point. But the other half of the message of Chesterton's Fence is that once you can explain to him why the fence is there, you're entitled to tear it out if you still think it's a good idea. The point isn't to avoid changing things, it's to always understand the reasoning behind the status quo before changing it.