I am reading a fascinating book, ”The Bug” by Jesse Ullman, these days. It contains a description of programming with which I completely agree

Programming starts out like it’s going to be architecture – all black lines on white paper, theoretical and abstract and spatial and up-in-the-head. Then, right around the time you have to get something fucking working, it has this nasty tendency to turn into plumbing.

…

It’s more like you’re hired as a plumber to work in an old house full of ancient, leaky pipes laid out by some long-gone plumbers who were even weirder than you are. Most of the time you spend scratching your head and thinking: Why the fuck did they do that?