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Crying over a program

Have you ever cried over something that was never alive?

I work on a new project, my old project died because of hardware problems our software was too inflexible to change to. Like a dead with a broken leg, kept alive by lucky break after lucky break, taken to its breaking point, and then beyond it. it lies dead, gathering dust now. With a rough hope that it might live again.

It came out of the womb with that broken leg. It never stood a chance. I can't hardly imagine what a revival would look like.

I didn't work on development of that project, I worked on automation. automating test cases, taking heavy long-running burdens off of people's backs, doing things faster and easier than could be done manually. we built it to be extensible, easy to share. We were already working on a project agnostic project, to include these sharable things with others. We took our automation and made a validation GUI tool with it. people could generate these data files on a whim, and that was only going to be the start. We had so many ideas, and they weren't even going to take that long to come to fruit. I gave a presentation that lots of people were interested in about the innovation, the power, the spark of curiosity that grabbed us and that could grab others.

I paraded around a corpse, demanding people praise how beautiful it was, even as limbs and hair kept falling off of it.

The new project I'm working on has smart people, like my last project. they also are working on a sharable project, like we were. They also are developing an assertion handler for getting context and flexibility on top of the given assertion layers, like we did.

I went back to that old automation project. Entered that long cold and dry home, looting through the cupboards for the things we did. And I was reminded of what we were, and what we were supposed to be, what we were promised

and I cried

and I'm still crying

I grabbed up all of the things I could find that I thought others would take, things that were built for others to take, and then I ran out of that place, blubbering like a fool.

weeping over something that was never alive

but something that was, nevertheless, a deep part of my soul

This thing that is dead, deader than dead, but is also like me that is alive.

I don't know where I go from here, except to try again. take those ideas and that passion forward. try to find success in new contexts, if I'm allowed the time and space to find them.