It happens with alarming regularity. Everywhere I go; almost every team I meet; with the majority of the people whom I have mentored, there is always this question: "Yeah...but will it work here?"
The implication is that this place is special. This place has a different set of circumstances which exempt it from needing to learn TDD, design patterns or refactoring.
Yet these techniques are established. They are proven beyond any reasonable doubt and on a broad scale. There might be something better coming in the future but it's not a resurgence of the old ways.
Those three disciplines work, largely, because they aren't sensitive to where they work. There's nothing special about any environment.
Your circumstances aren't special.
Test-driven development, design patterns, and refactoring are what software development is. If they don't work in your environment, it's because software development doesn't work in your environment.
