I've seen this happen multiple times at multiple companies.
It's a noob error -- and the worst part? People make these mistakes, create huge messes, then go on to other companies and do it all over again.
The general point is this: imperative, OO code has a known set of anti-patterns which good practitioners become familiar with and avoid. If you're fresh out of school, making these mistakes are just the way you learn the ropes. Using those folks as an example was much kinder than complaining about the lousy status of some programmer/architects in general. At least the college kids have a good excuse :)
ADD: I'll say this a different way. Yes, I've seen tons of it in the wild. I do not consider these people to be professional programmers. I consider them folks who got technically stuck at some point in their education.
The first example was
print "Hello world!".
It gradually started adding functions, inheritance and other features with each year of experience.Then after ten years it went back to print "Hello World".
Thats been the reality for me. Understand the complex features of a language, but more importantly learn when they are appropriate.
http://www.connexin.net/computer-software-humor-jokes/progra...
He also nails it when he says "idleness is the source of much trouble"
In the commercial world, you code to do something, not just to code (hopefully). So you get in there, get it done right, then all go out for a beer. You don't sit around wondering if there's some cool CS construct that might be fun to try out here (At least hopefully not!) Clever code is dangerous code.
Good essay.