Best practice questions

Question

I wanted to ask a question at Code Review, so I visited the FAQ. It says this is ok:

• Code correctness
• Best practices and design pattern usage in your code
• Application UI
• Security issues in a code snippet, etc.
• The performance of your code

And this is not:

• Tools, best practices, improving, or conducting code reviews
• Trouble-shooting, debugging, or understanding code snippets
• Higher-level architecture and design of software systems

Is this just a typo? If not, what are the differences between the first and the latter (best practices)? Best practice in your own code should be closely related to best practices in general, or hence it is not best practice.

Answer 1

Ok, there's clearly room for improvement in the wording here, but what it means is this:

It's on topic to ask us to review your code for best practices (as in "Does this code follow best practices: ..."). But it's off topic to ask questions about best practices (as in "Is it considered best practice for functions to have a single point of return?").

Answer 2

This has already been updated some time ago:

• Best practices in general (that is, it's okay to ask "Does this code follow common best practices?", but not "What is the best practice regarding X?")
• Tools, improving, or conducting code reviews
• How to add a feature to or solve a problem with your code
• Trouble-shooting, debugging, or understanding code snippets
• Higher-level architecture and design of software systems