Fortran77 though. pretty limited set of organizational tools to work with there. Procs and Modules is it, I think (though I'm no expert). Many of the patterns w

Fortran77 though. pretty limited set of organizational tools to work with there. Procs and Modules is it, I think (though I'm no expert). Many of the patterns we're used to using for code organization just wouldn't be available. So how you would deal with a really big if statement without having more sophisticated tools? The business logic must have had a very large number of conditional branches. Even if you encapsulate the instructions of each branch in their own proc, it still doesn't change the fact that you're going to have a large number of conditions. This isn't particularly a solved problem even in modern languages. We can use all kinds of layers of abstraction to make individual units of code smaller, but it's sort of an illusion. Splatting your business logic across a dozen or more files/modules/classes whatever might make it easier to look at in a text editor but it doesn't make it easier to develop or test. If you've got complex business logic you're going to have a complex program.