The Ballad of Charlie Muggins

 

There was an old coder named Charlie,
Who grumbled and muttered quite snarly,
“For forty long years,
I’ve shed sweat, blood, and tears,
And the changes all strike me as gnarly!”

Each week brought a brand-new invention,
With languages past comprehension,
“Now Python! Now Go!
Next, C++ you must know!”
Till his patience was past all extension.

But whether in Ruby or Java,
Or dressed up in sleek Clojure garb-ah,
The troubles remain—
Scaling woes, just the same,
And the fixes breed bugs even larger.

Yet the bosses all cheerfully stated:
“Here’s a hot tool to be celebrated!
It is shiny and new,
So it must be for you!”
While poor Charlie just sat there deflated.

Now tired, tired, tired was he,
Of the industry’s odd potpourri,
Of the buzzwordy clatter,
And the nonsense that mattered,
More than wisdom or true constancy.