Why Does Software Seem So Ephemeral?

I write software. I love software. I think software can be beautiful. So then why does it sometimes feel as though software doesn't matter?

Perhaps it is because a program by itself is inert. It requires an interpreter to run. This is also true in every day life. A recipe by itself is not edible, unless it's printed on rice paper. A person must take the recipe and follow its instructions. We usually don't think about how likely that process is to succeed because we use language so naturally.

With a computer program, there is often no notion of "mostly right." If a program does not successfully run to completion, it is not thought to have produced anything useful. Programs require an interpreter, whether that interpreter is a CPU or another program running on a CPU. Why is that layer that does the interpreting always changing? Why do things become obsolete?

Maybe this is where things get philosophical. Who made those CPUs? Was it a company that is always striving to stand out against its competition? Perhaps that company doesn't really prioritize the preservation of beauty in software.

That's it, isn't it? The entire digital world rests on top of a foundation with different priorities. That foundation also feels complicated. Communicating and representing an idea in digital form requires so many other pieces to fall perfectly into place. And those pieces result from a process that is indifferent to the preservation of beauty.

That's why creative work in the "real" world seems so much more meaningful. It depends only on the laws of physics.