We′ve all seen that scene in the movie where the family all gather round to hear the reading of the will. As the solicitor reads each name aloud, the expression on the corresponding face is a signal as to how welcome the bequest is to the recipient A smile, a gasp of pleasant surprise or, maybe, a frown of disappointment. A legacy is something that is left or given by someone who is now at a distance, making communication with the donor difficult. It is also an ′aide-memoire′, something to remember them by. Recently though, the term ′legacy code′ has come to mean code which is difficult to work on, partly because it can be difficult to communicate with the originator of the code but mostly because it is difficult to communicate with the code itself. This strikes me as strange because that is the very essence of the programmer′s task. We are not ′problem-solvers′, as some would have it. Calculating the V.A.T on an invoice or working out how to draw graphics on a screen are not ′problems