There are a lot of famous books on the subject of best practices: "Code Complete" and "Clean Code" are the first to come to mind, but I'm sure the folks here can recommend others.
Pragmatic Programmer: http://amzn.com/020161622X
Code Complete 2: http://amzn.com/0735619670
Design Patterns is also very well known https://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Obj...