where I've had to take care of others code I have not changed the coding itself. Almost always it is a case of adding structure and documentation. Sometimes in the process of doing this process latent bugs are uncovered and get corrected. Sometimes an unexpected "feature" is discovered and properly dispositioned.

exactly.

The same goes for structure and documentation in the code you are writing, where, in the above, 'uncovered' is replaced by 'avoided'

Erik