Which direction to plant?

This has probably been covered before but for those of us who are fairly new to this site, do any of you experienced gardeners have any views on which direction to plant rows?  From somewhere I remember hearing that planting from north to south gives the maximum light and sunlight to all the rows.  This is the way we have planted but the majority of allotment holders on our site seem to favour east to west.

Yes, at our latitudes the presence of high structures and tall plants can make a difference to how you orientate your plants.

Think about how high the sun gets at different times of year as it traverses the plot and where the shadows will fall (shade is not always such a bad thing for plants that don't need or like full sun.) 

I think north/south planting is probably better for taller growing crops such as runner beans and cordon tomatoes but not so important for lower growing crops 

I tend to sow south/north  sorry
   Actually out of no forward planning most of my rows go north/south. Maybe I was just following all the other plot holders when i took on my plot