Small tools outlast frameworks
Why the least interesting parts of your stack are the ones you will keep.
May 2, 2026· 4 min· #engineering #essays
Every framework promises to save you time. Most of them do, for a while. The ones that stay useful five years later are the ones that got out of the way — not the ones that took over.
The pattern is easy to see in retrospect. Tools that do one small thing and expose a clean interface age well. Tools that own your control flow age badly.
A short list of survivors
curlmakesqlitegit- POSIX shell
None of them are exciting. All of them are still here.