Software Mandalas

Software development is starting to feel a lot like those Buddhist monks who spend days creating intricate paintings with colored sand, only to wipe them away as soon as they’re finished.

The first time I saw that ritual, I thought it was madness. So much effort for something destined to disappear.

But over time, I’ve realized how close it is to the work of a software developer.

We build things with care, precision, and endless attention to detail, knowing that most of what we create will not last. If we’re lucky, a piece of software survives a few years before something newer, better, or simply more fashionable replaces it. Then it fades away, forgotten.

And yet that does not make the work meaningless.

The value is not only in the artifact, which is almost always temporary. It is also in the act itself: in the discipline of making, in the patience of solving, in the constant self-improvement that happens while building something well.

Maybe that is the real reward: not permanence, but practice. Not legacy, but presence.

Now it remains to be seen whether the software monks will survive the tsunami of agentic coding, or whether they will simply forget the priceless pleasure of the reward that comes only after real, solid, hard work and effort.