> Perfection is achieved when there is nothing left to take away.

Perfection in glue and plumbing?

That's what 99% of software is. Even active-active distributed systems are glue and exist only to bridge ephemeral infrastructure. Everything will eventually be thrown out and rewritten.

Nobody lauds the half-century old banking code written in COBOL. They want it ripped out and replaced.

Nothing is "perfect". Not even close.

> "the sand doesn't matter, only the beach does"? Makes no sense.

The code isn't the sand, it's the sandcastle.

> > In 100 years people will look at our ephemeral artifacts as silly little things

> Whereas they'll totally admire the hamster wheels in which people shoveled product?

They'll hear about "You Tube" and "Face Book", I'm sure. But none of the code that runs either of those things will likely be running or capable of running.