All code is fleeting

Cool URI’s don’t change but codebases and teams do. It can be painful to say goodbye to the code you’ve written when it’s rewritten or removed without warning. Conversely, being asked to refactor or rebuild a dated function/page/system can feel positively heroic. It all comes down to how personally attached you are to the thing being replaced, and how much it frustrates you.

Having been in a startup situation where literally everything was deleted, you begin to understand that it ain’t all about the code we write. The “outputs”; all the code, the designs, the processes, the tests—they’re ultimately fleeting. It might be our choice, it might not, but it’ll all be replaced or removed in time.

But the relationships you make, the impact you have in colleagues' & customers' lives, and the growth that occurs in your professional journey outlasts any fork in the road.

As Mandy Brown beautifully writes, big changes only make sense in hindsight. The trick is try to appreciate the lasting & important stuff in the moment. Throw yourself deep into a problem for your growth, to support your colleagues, or to end the day feeling proud you did the best job you could for your customers. Be wary when you begin to chase code perfection over these things; you’re only making the inevitable break-up harder.

Healthy things grow and growing things change