Probably the most elusive concept in SoftwareIndustry

That's because the term is silly, and entirely context-free.  The use of the term on its own fails to address two specific unknowns:

1) "Best" by what measure?  On what scale?  According to whom?

2) "Solutions" to what problem?

The Context-Driven School of software testing (http://www.context-driven-testing.com) eschews the notion of BestSolutions or BestPractice''''''s; these terms are simply meaningless, an attempt by people with various axes to grind to pretend that they have the One True Way to do things.  Yet companies are diverse; the tasks that they undertake are diverse; the people that make up companies are diverse; the products that they produce are diverse.  Practices can be more or less appropriate in a given context, but without knowing the context, no practice can be considered "best".

MichaelBolton 2004-02-26

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In essence, patterns are the result of BestSolutions. They are descriptions of methods and structures which have been found successful in addressing certain specific tasks, stated in terms abstract enough to be of GeneralUse:

''Alexander writes: ''
* "Each pattern is a three-part rule, which expresses a relation between a certain context, a problem, and a solution. "
** ''I'm sure that because he wrote this many feel that the rewording above is a fair copy. I don't think it is. Alexander is capable of writing simple sentences when the thought he wishes to express is simple. He could easily have said "a pattern is solution to a problem in a context" - he uses most of these words already. But, instead he wrote the paragraph above and he went on to explain:'' 
* "As an element in the world, each pattern is a relationship between a certain context, a certain system of forces which occurs repeatedly in that context, and a certain spatial configuration which allows these forces to resolve themselves." 
* "As an element of language, a pattern is an instruction, which shows how this spatial configuration can be used, over and over again, to resolve the given system of forces, wherever the context makes it relevant." [ PatternDefinitionThread ] -- DonaldNoyes 20080123
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Related: CategoryPattern
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CategorySolutions