"I took a job at Initrode Software to help build the bridge to C#/.NET from their current, VB6 codebase," Chris G. writes. "It didn't take me too long to realize that the original programmers of this software — the only product that Initrode sold — had very little real-world experience."

"Recently," Chris continued, "I was fixing some of the code that was used to highlight a portion of the screen when I found this."

If MouseIsDown Then pic.Cls pic.Line (MouseStartX, MouseStartY)-(MouseStartX, Y) pic.Line (MouseStartX, MouseStartY)-(X, MouseStartY) pic.Line (X, MouseStartY)-(X, Y) pic.Line (MouseStartX, Y)-(X, Y) Else '******************************************************* '***** DO NOT REMOVE THE ELSE. ***** '***** Program is skipping the End If without it. ***** '***** Very weird. ***** '******************************************************* End If

"As expected, when I removed the else clause, the program still ran as expected and logic flow was not disturbed. I don't know what chain of events lead up to this, nor do I want to."