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.