Recently in the Chatterbox, while musing about perl idioms and whatnot, a well-known perl advocate interjected that he was considering writing a book on "Perl Second-Best Practices."

This interjection was of course recognized as a humorous remark, but it got me to thinking. Why not? There *must* be times when you think to yourself:

"Hmmm ... I know this shouldn't be in my code, but ..."

and then you apply whatever justification to go ahead and do it anyway.

Sometimes those justifications are out of ignorance. Sometimes they are not. The kind I am interested in are the latter.

Specifically: are there any "Second-Best" practices that you use on a regular basis? If so, why? I post this to see if any of you are willing to publically admit to it. You know you're out there.