Wait until you find out that "coder" originally meant "someone who encodes messages into Morse". And if you start digging into the word "code", you'll find it comes from latin "codex" which is a mutation of "caudex" meaning, literally, "tree trunk".

Because back then, people would write on wooden tablets covered with wax.

So.. next time you see a kludge and think of "historical reasons", consider that "historical" goes back much farther than 20th century. :)

Or teletype... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprinter