Some of the following may seem somewhat “basic” to the experienced software developer but in the era of “ship it” early and often, you often have to play catch up and learn even the basics as you go. Comments and further thoughts and advice appreciated!
Great read and good "best practices".
Just don't agree with #3:
"3. Queries: avoid joins. No exceptions to this rule."
If you have a complex data model but need fast (mostly read-only) access to huge data sets, consider adding an additional layer using a search engine. Check out this Wikipedia article:
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_oriented_architecture" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_oriented_architecture</a>
Can't say I agree with #10 - "Files like (sic) Srciptaculous and Prototype should be loaded directly from the Google Ajax Libraries API".<p>Remember a few months ago when Google and all sites using Google services were really slow? (<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=608866" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=608866</a>)