aevathere's this quote "a society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in" that shows up verbatim lots of places cited as a Greek proverb, but the degree to which it is quoted verbatim makes me think there might be a more recent source that's not being attributed properly. regardless of its origin, i like the philosophy: build a better future together little by little doing the things you can today
i think this is one of the reasons i find programming as a profession to be frustrating at times, because so much of what people make ends up being ephemera. people are constantly planting seeds, and then digging up seeds to replace them with more fashionable seeds. the only shade is the shade thrown at the people who had the gall to plant those earlier seeds. meanwhile the next generation of seed planters are lining up for the same plot
Patrick Down@aeva Software is very mailable and the possible solution space for a problem is larger than other engineering professions. Combine this with smart and bored programmers and you get a tendency to reinvent the wheel.
"I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention—invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble." -- Agatha Christie