I've seen this, too. I wrote a PC-based project for initializing EFT pinpads. It was considerably more powerful than the mini-computer program it was replacing. I got a printout of old program to start from - cut'n'paste galore. I couldn't believe their best programmer wrote this. Admittedly it was in FORTRAN, but that doesn't excuse it.

Later, when a firmware change on one type of pinpad necessitated a change in the program, the ex-mini-computer programmer who got maintainence had never seen a state machine before* and was trying to debug the state machine instead of adjusting the (C macro based) script it was running.

OTOH, I have seen MF programmers move on to bigger and better things. Mostly because MF programming was stifling their skills...

Wade.

* there was a lot possible in C that he hadn't seen, actually.