That letter by Dijkstra was certainly hyperbolic. But he was also referring to a version of BASIC where <i>unstructured</i> programming was the norm. To say that that ruins programmers is not entirely wrong. Consider the developer who has to unlearn years of habit involving the use of numerous global variables and temporary variables that produce unreasonable code. What does t1324ab123 mean?!? Seriously. What does it mean? This is in code written by people with <i>bad</i> habits. The hyperbolic element is that they&#x27;re &quot;brain damaged&quot;. But the truth is, they have to be rehabilitated and convinced that what they&#x27;re doing is unmaintainable and unreasonable. Programmer background does matter. Modern BASIC is not at all what he was railing against in that letter.<p>EDIT: EWD498 - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cs.utexas.edu&#x2F;users&#x2F;EWD&#x2F;ewd04xx&#x2F;EWD498.PDF" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cs.utexas.edu&#x2F;users&#x2F;EWD&#x2F;ewd04xx&#x2F;EWD498.PDF</a>