Should I put my MacBook Pro to sleep, or shut it down every day?

I have a 2 year old 3rd Generation Macbook. I have only ever rebooted the machine when a Software Update or install requires it which is fairly rare, and when I used Bootcamp, which I have since removed. I have only had the battery completely die on me once.

Recently I noticed that my battery is only charging to 96% capacity, but considering the use this is fairly standard. I still get 4-5 hours on a battery however, which is more then enough for my needs.

Not to mention how impressive it is when opening the lid and already typing before any other machine around me has even started coming out of sleep mode.

I often go upwards of 10 days without shutting my Macbook down (when using OS X). I have found that Windows has horrible power saving measures when the lid is closed, so you should not cary those 'practices' over when using Macbooks with OS X.

I have not seen my battery life degrade at all during the three months I have done it for.

I go for weeks without ever rebooting any of my macs (laptops or mac pros); never any problems. For my macbook i still get ~4 hours out of the battery having rarely shut it down, always sleeping it by shutting the lid in 3 years of use. This still amazes me, remembering my clunky former Win2k/XP laptops...

Go ahead, put it to sleep for as much and as long as you can, and whatever minute chances of harm coming to your MBP is just as much, or as little, as when you Shutting it down and rebooting daily.

My sis has been putting her MB to sleep everyday for the past 2 years, while I've been shutting down and rebooting my MBP daily, and yet I scarcely see any noticeable performance issues in both our systems.

I use it for a lot of development, and need to reboot it daily. I think it depends on what you are doing.