In the 80's I apprenticed under a greybeard programmer who gave me all the shitty network code to write, while he experimented with neural networks instead of writing "old school" error correction logic for said network code.

I'm grateful for his bikeshedding, because it made me a network programmer and led to a fine career building Internet service providers, but I'll never forget his frustration .. "the computer is simply not big enough, we need to build a bigger computer" .. I wonder where he is these days. Hopefully retired.