Code design Memes

The meme perfectly captures the software development lifecycle in three tragic acts: Act 1: A beautiful binary tree structure representing clean, modular code that makes developers shed tears of joy. Act 2: The dreaded "but what if" requirement change appears - that moment when product managers casually suggest connecting two previously unrelated parts of your architecture. Act 3: KABOOM! Your elegant architecture explodes into a million pieces because that one little cross-connection violates every separation of concerns principle you carefully crafted. This is why senior developers twitch uncontrollably whenever they hear "just a small change" in sprint planning. Your pristine SOLID principles are about to meet their mortal enemy: business reality.

The programming paradigm hierarchy in its natural habitat. Object-oriented programmers confidently standing tall, data-oriented programmers clinging to them for support, and return-oriented programmers... well, they've fallen into the bucket and can't get out. Classic case of function returning to the wrong address space. That rabbit's not coming back with a value anytime soon.

That sign is basically legacy code in a nutshell. Some engineer 15 years ago decided to save 20 bucks by wiring the light switch to the elevator control system, and now we're all hostages to their terrible architecture decisions. This is exactly why we preach separation of concerns. Your light switch should do ONE thing. When a junior dev asks "why can't I just add this feature to the authentication service?" show them this picture and watch their soul leave their body.