Could be survivor bias. All legacy code that isn't terrible is rewritten. All terrible legacy code isn't touched by anyone and therefore remains.

Yeah but this guy wrote the first native C++ compiler and then the D programming language

Did not know that until you mentioned! Sometimes even legends post here on HN!

Walter is pretty regular around here, but I agree, it's like Arnold Schwarzenegger dropping in at reddit to hang out

To da choppah!