Site standards would play a huge part, you can write code without using GOTO in COBOL fine, and some programmers loved JSP (Jackson Structured Programming), yet

Site standards would play a huge part, you can write code without using GOTO in COBOL fine, and some programmers loved JSP (Jackson Structured Programming), yet modifying that code would make things open to whoever modified it and so the nuances and quirks of the programmer play out and code that has had many years of evolving standards and programming styles can be a right nasty mess that always begs a rewrite but the budget is for the change and no time for the rewrite. So the legacy snowballs. Hence not all code equal and the site standards and that history as well as knowing that can make an almighty difference. Never had copybook issues with ICL or Honeywell BULL platforms ;). That would be an IBM thang, but then, is there anything else still running - probably.