Reasons For Holy Wars

This is an attempt to document forest-level reasons for HolyWars. In other words, identify more general pivotable principles.

Perception of Change

People simply perceive change and patterns of change differently. Changes that may have burned some designs may not have burned others; or perhaps if somebody gets chewed out for the inability to handle change A, but not for the inability to handle change B, then in the future they may focus more on reducing A-related change problems at the expense of B.

Standards versus Freedom

Some people seem to like standards because they either provide ready-made solutions, or reduce the variety of solutions offered by others, making reading other's code and debugging easier. However, sometimes it is nice to model things after one's own mind for a more comfortable fit, regardless of how standards suggest doing it.

Presentation Absorption

Different people absorb information quicker in different forms. A presentation approach that is easy for person A may not be easy for person B, and vice versa.

Different Values or Objectives

Example: The desire to compact the code so that "it all fits on a screen" vs the desire to "introduce white space to improve readability."

Trusted Authority - Authority X seems to have been reliable in the past such that a new pronouncement is then followed.