Today's Oracle gem is the ACCEPT SQL*Plus command with the HIDE option. This is how you get passwords and other sensitive data into your program. You can probably figure it out on your own pretty well, but it is documented in Oracle SQL*Plus: the Definitive Guide.
Believe it or not, today's gem came from our organization's build standards document. I actually like large chunks of this document; it shows I am working with competent people. A lot of it is focused on performance, though, and comes of sounding like folklore and cargo cult practices. However, a significant portion of it is focused on maintainability issues, which I still think should be the primary focus of a coding standard.
