[AnimalMuppet]

You literally wrote things, things that worked, in assembly, and you're wondering if you were ever able to code? You're being way too hard on yourself.

Although... "coding" originally meant doing what an assembler does - translating mnemonics into binary (or octal or hex) instructions, literally encoding the instructions. So by the original standards, if you're using even an assembler, then no, you're not.

But definitions change over time. By current standards, from what you said, you definitely are able to code.

[Haeuserschlucht]

Thank you for your compassion, I really appreciate that.

Yet it is not so much about downplaying myself than rather thinking about whether what I did was useful, even necessary. Is there inherent intellectual value in fixing dependency issues? Or is the real value in the actual idea? In the perfect description of the problem? Basically the antithesis to the old-age statement of "Ideas are worth nothing, execution is what counts"?

[AnimalMuppet]

Don't judge execution pre-2020 (or thereabouts) by execution in 2026. What you did may not be necessary if you were doing it today. But you were doing it then, not now, and then it was necessary in order to be able to do it at all.