A Programmer In Search Of A Myth

Today's work was a lot of rearranging and adjusting code. If I've done it right things should now be mildly more convenient for me, and there should be no sign of the changes to anyone else. This is often a goal in programming. There is a lot of work that goes into designing things such that big or small changes can be made inside a program, while whoever or whatever is using it keeps going on their merry way. There are good reasons to do this, and work that has no direct effects can still be useful in paving the way for other work, but it still feels rather strange.

I wonder, what other fields does this sort of situation happen in? I know how it comes about in software, but the world is a much bigger place than software and I have no doubt that it can take many forms.

It's not exactly Sisyphean, you can have your goal and accomplish it, there is an end to the task. And it's not a matter of obliviousness or ingratitude on the part of whoever's on the outside, the way I eat strawberries without thinking about how they got to me or who picked them. It is work that is done and is truly invisible and unobservable for all but the ones doing the work.

I feel like there should be some sort of myth about this, some fable. Someone condemned to this sort of toil as a warning against bragging or boasting about your work. Some cousin of Sisyphus perhaps.

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