I agree, I think that the problem is the Corp VP's making uninformed decisions. But when you see Java code like this: StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer()

I agree, I think that the problem is the Corp VP's making uninformed decisions. But when you see Java code like this: StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer(); if(buffer == null){ //do something, in most cases i have seen return; } The problem here is in Java new will never return null. One of the worst ones I saw was a point system for exception handling that most of the time crashed the entire app. This is only a simple example of what I have seen. When the entire application is spattered with code like that performance takes a major hit. My assumption is that the outsourcing company took a programmer that knew C++ and said you now write JAVA. Further reinforcing your point!