{ Code: Impossible }

Derik Whittaker wrote a great article on best practices and how "best practice" is essentially a bunch of bullshit:

About the only thing [Best Practice] means is 'I have found that doing XYZ in ABC way works the best for me'.  But just because it works for you, or even works for a group of people that does not mean it is 'Best Practice'.

I've never really thought about it but this is 160% correct. Even now, at my current job we are reviewing Spiral, Agile, TDD and other SDLCs in order to conform to "best practices". Thankfully my boss understands that what works for some may not work for all and if something isn't working we won't have time to try to screw with it. We'll have to move on and find something that fits better. This is exactly how "best practices" should be treated. As suggestions on how to handle software development. There is no "one ring to rule them all" in our world. There are many rings each has a different fit to it and needs to be tried on to see where it fits best.