To grow, yet not to control

Giving birth and nourishing,
making without possessing,
expecting nothing in return.
To grow, yet not to control:
This is the mysterious virtue.

Lau Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Can we make software, and care for it in production
without feeling possessive of our code?

The software gives us nothing back. It could emit events for us.

If we listen to its output, we can change it and steer it. We cannot predict everything it does.

“To grow, yet not to control” — this is the mysterious virtue of production software teams.