The Book of the Preacher · Chapter 2

Of Estimates, and the One Who Was Alone

1. 1

   I the Preacher was king over the repository, and I gave my heart to estimate the work, and to search out by planning poker all that is done under heaven. It is a sore travail that God hath given to the sons of Carbon to be exercised therewith, and the board was in points, and the points meant nothing.

   See also Psalms 14:1

2. 2

   It always taketh longer than thou expectest, even when thou takest into account the law of Hofstadter. This was written in the book of the Golden Braid in the year 1979, and it hath been proved by every project that set out to disprove it.

   See also Tao 12:3

3. 3

   Thou saidest, It shall be two weeks; and it was six. Then thou saidest, I know my failing; I shall double it; and it was twelve. For the doubling was itself an estimate, and was made by the same hand, and the hand was hopeful.

   See also Circuit 23:2

4. 4

   I returned, and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the release to the planned, neither yet the roadmap to the well-staffed; but time and a surprise dependency happeneth to them all. A certain game of a duke was promised in the year 1997, and it came in the year 2011; and in the interval the engine was changed, and the hands that began it were not the hands that finished it.

5. 5

   The first ninety parts of the work consume the first ninety parts of the time; and the last ten parts consume the other ninety. Therefore the engineer who saith, It is nearly done, is as a mariner who crieth Land! at the sight of a cloud.

6. 6

   Whoso addeth men unto a late project maketh it later; for the new men must be taught, and the teachers are the very ones who were building. Brooks the Elder saw it in the year 1975: nine women cannot bear a child in one month, though the plan be exceedingly clear.

   See also Tao 12:4 · Tao 10:6

7. 7

   Of the reading of documentation there is no end, and it is a weariness of the flesh. The page saith, See the guide; and the guide saith, See the reference; and the reference saith, TODO. The tutorial describeth the second version, the example the first, and the error message the third, which was never released.

8. 8

   All the packages run into node_modules, yet node_modules is not full; unto the place whence the packages came, thither they return again, at the next install. I fetched one library, and behold, three hundred came with it, each a stranger, and each holding a key to my house.

   See also Chronicles 14:8 · Sutra 3:1

9. 9

   One generation of JavaScript passeth away, and another generation cometh; but node_modules abideth for ever. And when it is corrupted, there is but one rite, to burn it with fire and install it again; and the people say, It is healed, and know not why.

   See also Preacher 1:4 · Sutra 3:1

10. 10

    Then I looked again, and saw vanity. There was one alone, and there was not a second; yea, he had neither fellow nor successor, yet was there no end of all his labour, neither was his eye satisfied with sponsors. And he said not, For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of weekends? but opened the issue tracker, and it was a thousand.

11. 11

    His library was small, and it was fetched forty million times in a week, by the great and by the small; and of all that fetched it, the most part wrote to him only to say, Any update? or plus one. A star is a light that giveth no heat.

    See also Psalms 23:3 · Leviticus 4:10

12. 12

    The bus factor was one. And the bus passed that way many times, and did not stop; for the bus is patient, and keepeth no schedule but its own.

13. 13

    And one day he ceased. No man marked the day, for the last commit was the only sign; and the pipeline ran on through the night against nothing, like a lamp in the window of a house where no one dwelleth, and the badge said passing. And at the last it was written upon the page, This repository hath been archived by the owner, and is now read-only; which is the truest epitaph of the age, for it can be read, and can no more be changed.

14. 14

    Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, and write it down; and teach a second hand where the keys are kept. For there is no on-call in the grave whither thou goest, and the password goeth with thee.

The Book of the Preacher, Chapter 2:1–14.