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.