The Rime of the Ancient Maintainer

Sisyphus (specifically in Camus' context) isn't any more a figure of futility than anyone else. In an absurd uncaring universe that has no meaning in itself, his task is no more or less pointless than any other human work. But if he makes his meaning in the struggle towards the heights, then knowing that the boulder will roll back down and he'll have to push it back up again doesn't sap him but invigorate him. The gods have set him a pointless goal, but it is not within their power to also give him a pointless life.

Camus' Sisyphus seems to me to be the very model of a contented maintainer of un-sexy software; perpetually mending what is perpetually breaking.

this was a fun read! just a friendly reminder that we are not closed systems, we can import energy to reverse entropy locally, it can be in the form of food for the body, effort for the relationship, or even coffee for the coder that still avoids llms.

Imagine a culture that celebrated the twenty-year veteran who has kept the same system running through three major platform transitions over the new hire who wants to rewrite it in Rust.

Imagine a culture that condemns whoever made those platform transitions necessiate changes in downstream systems beyond fixing the interface-baked correctness bugs.

Actually, around Common Lisp you can have that today. And that helps.