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Congratulations, you've learned a new skill...Real-World Programming. Sorta like Real-Time Programming, except someone else wrote all the code, nothing ever works, so it doesn't matter if the tasks finish within the allotted time slot.
Any Real-World programmer knows that return 97 means error 96 with one argument, what's the problem? And yes, that print routine should have been one base class with 23 levels of inheritance piled on, sloppy programming there, sure to bring down your cyclomatic complexity score.
Set some realistic goals and all will be well. Myself, I'm working on getting that cyclomatic complexity score to overflow and crash Visual Studio.
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Bruce,
You have to be the Yoda! What they did is done. You "get" to clean it up.
You "get" to use that brain to figure out what brainless people were doing.
You get to be the white hat, and the hero!
Everyday, just make something better... And you will leave a legacy!
In this case, the code is the stimulus. And the most amazing part of being human,
is we get to CHOOSE our response to stimuli... We can get all upset. Lose hope/faith.
Cry that it isn't fair.
Or, we can take some of these examples, put them aside for a future article/book/training
material (as in... If you do this while working for me, you will be fired, and I will publicly
post what you did!).
And then clean it up. The hardest thing is to be the Jedi that only makes the changes
that are required while making things a little better each time. (Most programmers see horrible
stuff and want to re-write all of it. That is far easier than understanding illogical code, and
fixing it with the smallest, best change possible).
Finally... Think of ways that would prevent this in the future. Code Reviews!!!
Start having them. Stop the creation of bad code NOW.
When I approach it this way, I find it empowering.
Otherwise, if your perspective is off, one could reduce fixing "well written" code to "All I do is fix bugs or implement STUPID business changes that they should have put in there already". Which might be accurate, but does nothing to answer the question "How can I become Happier?"
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Rather than rant, you could just do like me and my coworker did once -- named an award of coding shame after the former engineer and passed it around for years whenever we caught each other, or ourselves, doing something so stupid.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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I feel for you. Probably the worst code I ever worked on was a real-time program where the apparently nonsensical sequence of events had a real-world impact that was not immediately obvious. 
Fletcher Glenn
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Try a project written by a sucksession of contractors all of whom codded differently badly with simple aspx pages with 2k+ line code behinds. The contractors are long gone. Then anyone with even passing knowledge of how the application works doesn't have time to waste on explaining fertilizer ( think organic) to you. Can you get this done by tomorrow?
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Hmmm... If you know what the program's supposed to do, then I'd advise you to delete it and write a new one... by the time you figure out how this crap works, you might as well have done that anyway.
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You didn't say how legacy "legacy" is, but there are always logical reasons for these things.
The first reason is that someone was making changes and didn't get around to making the change everywhere.
The meaning of the magic code 97 can be found on a note pasted under the system operator's keyboard.
The print routine call is a masterpiece of software engineering that allows you to call different routines with the same code.
You have a remarkably stable database to be able to stand firm for a thousand years. I would be grateful.
The toga might be allowed on some casual Fridays. I would check into it.
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That's my code you're complaining about.  Seriously though, I've run into code like this and you're almost better off rewriting from scratch when it's this bad.
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Sounds like the problems I face on a day to day basis...
What I try to do is first of all figure out what is required of me. Then, very carefully inject what I need to do somewhere that looks appropriate. The key is to move things around but keep what is does and when it does it.
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence."
<< please vote!! >></div>
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Moving from "old school" GWT to UI Binder is not "getting current".
Elephant elephant elephant, sunshine sunshine sunshine
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It can be... I mean, trying to use UIBinder with generic classes kinda feels like getting a large amount of current shunted through your skull...
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I'm shocked that you would say such a thing.
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Sorry, thinking about GWT just got me a little amped up... I couldn't resist.
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I would have upvolted that, only if you two had difference in your potential.
You have just been Sharapova'd.
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You don't upvolt things. I guess you can't be a transformer then, oh well.
I'm not very funny. Sorry.
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that's the idea  report it there, the rest of us kick the cr@p outta it till it goes away 
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Do vegan zombies eat GRAAAIIINNNZZZ?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Vegans ∩ Zombies = ∅ 
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You imply that Zombie mothers don't breast feed their children?
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