Since I am learning Houdini, I was trying to create a lathe surface. It appears there are more ways than in other 3D programs to create this. Is there a best practice for procedural modeling to create models that will not come back to bite you when you are doing something more complex? I see there are five ways at least to create a lathe in Houdini (see attachment). So my question is, when one is starting a procedural model, how does one go about thinking of the best method? With destructive modeling, it would not really matter.

it's all about what kind control you want from your setup if you plan to wrap it into an asset or need to be able to tweak specific things later

the same for this lathe example
each way may have advantages/disadvantages so it's really up to your needs, they are simply not the same, and of course you can continue making other different setups that all result in the same shape like Y with deformation done procedurally by ramp, etc.

Y - is very nonprocedural, since it doesn't allow you to freely adjust segment count on your tube or shape without directly modifying the Edit SOP
P - makes it manual to add more section or pretty unintuitive to edit existing sections items of position and scale
B - pretty procedural, may be suitable for a lot of lathe shapes, however it's limited in terms of shapes you can achieve since ramp profiles can't have overhangs
R - similar allows for non-circular profiles
G - allows for editing precise profile shape, if needed you can have profile curve as an input to your asset to keep important parts procedural, but still allow full artistic control over shape

anyway, the point is, pick the approach based on your needs
however if there is many approaches that satisfy all your needs, pick the most optimized/fastest one, since you can wrap it in the same interface, but the speed ultimately matters in the long run

Thank you. That is helpful!