Programming via Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes is Solomon's valediction as an old man. From the purported wisest man that ever lived--gifted with wisdom from God Himself--comes a book that seems a real downer on the hollowness of nearly every pursuit in his hedonistic life.
Sometimes, having worked as a developer for 16 years, I'm reminded off Ecclesiastes.
With apologies to Solomon:
To everything there is a season:
A time to build big, and a time to build small,
A time to write, and lots more time to sustain,
A time to break systems apart,
A time to pull systems together.
A time to delete, and a time to merge.
Most telling is the author's refrain: "All is vanity! There is nothing new under the sun."
It doesn't discourage me, but it does make me think: Is this worth rewriting/redoing, or should I just use something off-the-shelf? The thrill of just writing everything myself is gone, replaced by the understanding that whatever I write is more "mental surface area" for the rest of my colleagues to understand, versus using a well-documented and understood implementation.
And in that, growth. To everything, there is a season.
Sometimes, having worked as a developer for 16 years, I'm reminded off Ecclesiastes.
With apologies to Solomon:
To everything there is a season:
A time to build big, and a time to build small,
A time to write, and lots more time to sustain,
A time to break systems apart,
A time to pull systems together.
A time to delete, and a time to merge.
Most telling is the author's refrain: "All is vanity! There is nothing new under the sun."
It doesn't discourage me, but it does make me think: Is this worth rewriting/redoing, or should I just use something off-the-shelf? The thrill of just writing everything myself is gone, replaced by the understanding that whatever I write is more "mental surface area" for the rest of my colleagues to understand, versus using a well-documented and understood implementation.
And in that, growth. To everything, there is a season.
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