I remember many years ago coming across a reimplementation of the server side for a popular MMORPG of the time, reverse-engineered from the client (which was Flash) by what was likely a teenager --- it was over 100k lines in a single file, written in Visual Basic. Global variables everywhere, short names, and not even indentation. All the account data was stored in flat files, there was no actual DB. No "best practices" at all. Yet, not surprisingly, it worked pretty well and was actually not difficult to modify --- Ctrl+F would easily get you to the right place in the code.
I guess the moral is, never underestimate what determination and creativity can do, and always be skeptical when someone says there's only one best way to do something.
I guess the moral is, never underestimate what determination and creativity can do, and always be skeptical when someone says there's only one best way to do something.