For the past few months, I've been slogging through some PHP code written by a solo programmer with no real oversight from other programmers. His code is a monoculture.

I found this bit of code today that just sums up his unwillingness, or perhaps inability, to refactor. 

if (substr($libtest,0,12) == "FOO COUNTY")
$foocounty=$getmultiples=1;
if ((substr($libtest,0,12) == "FOO COUNTY") && ($state=="TX")) {
$foocounty=$getmultiples=0;
$foocountytx=$getmultiples=1;
}

Just read those lines of code and you can recreate the crime in your head. First there was a customer in Foo County. Then, we had to handle a different Foo County, but this Foo County was in Texas. He couldn't even be bothered to change the initial test to be more specific, or to modify the existing code. His solution was the simplest thing that could possibly work, and was also the worst: Reversing the effect of the first check for Foo County. There's also no checking for non-Texas, non-original Foo County, but when I checked I found that we have customers that are in Foo County in THREE different states.

The programmer no longer works for us, so I'm unable to ask him about his motivations. I'm fascinated by the mindset that is unable to do the barest rework necessary.