If you enjoy quotes and you’re into software development, I think you’ll get a kick out this. I’m a big fan of Theodore Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena speech / quote. What if he was talking about software development and the challenges and persistence required to succeed there?
The OG: Theodore Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena:
Original quote (very slighly modernized):
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man or woman stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the those actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends themself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if they fail, at least fails while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Now, For Software Developers ;)
Here are three variants. Pick your favorite.
Legacy Code Warriors
It is not the keyboard-warrior of comment threads who elevates the craft, but the engineer whose IDE still glows at midnight, whose mind is seared by stack-trace hieroglyphs, and whose resolve endures failed build after failed build. The honor rests with those who wade into legacy code knee-deep in technical debt, emerging grimy but triumphant with a cleaner architecture. Or, if defeated, bearing the proud scars of having fought for elegance.
The Refactorer
History will not inscribe the names of those who idly mock version bumps from the safety of evergreen branches; it will memorialize the maintainer who shepherds migrating APIs across chasms of breaking changes, committing line by weary line while alarms of regression clang in their ears. Should the migration succeed, they savor a quiet victory; should it falter, they rest in the knowledge that progress is purchased with audacity, not armchair critique.
Open source maintainers
No glory clings to the spectator who counts another’s failed builds; it crowns the open-source contributor whose pull request is battle-scarred by review, whose changelog tells of failures endured, and whose merged code becomes the unseen engine of tomorrow’s discoveries.