I think that a lot of us cringe at the idea of "hard coding" certain things. Even thought it may be the "right" way to solve the problem, setting that date, name, or ID value in the code just feels awkward to do. I'm guessing that David Grant's predecessors don't quite get that "nails on a chalkboard" feeling when handling errors throughout their application ... 

try
{
  // [lots of code that accesses database thru helper functions...]
}
catch (Exception e)
{
  if (e.Message == 
    "Cannot insert duplicate key row in object 'ProjectIDCode' with unique "
    + "index 'adx_Projects_ProjectIDCode'.\r\n"
    + "Unexpected error inserting Profile.\r\n"
    + "The statement has been terminated.")
  {
    lblError.Text = 
      "This code is already associated with another "
      + "Project, please select another code.";
    return;
  }
  else
  {
    throw;
  }
}
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