Software's Memory

I have a pretty good memory, but there’s one area where it fails me completely—software I’ve built myself. Even when I personally designed every feature and typed out every single line of code.

Once, I took Xiao Zhang along for a follow-up visit to a client’s office. A young woman was using our software on her computer. I watched her perform an operation that looked completely unfamiliar, so I asked, “Does the software even have that feature?” She replied, “Of course! We’ve always used it this way.” It suddenly dawned on me: “Oh, so you can use it like that too…” Standing beside me, Xiao Zhang stared at me and teased, “Master, are you sure you’re the one who built this software?” I answered, “Yeah, I am…” But then I caught the puzzled look from the young woman, and honestly, I felt a little guilty.

Another time, during a visit to a different company, I sat down confidently at Mr. Liu’s computer, feeling quite accomplished, and proudly launched my software—only to be greeted by an error message preventing login. I was baffled: hadn’t they been using it for ages? Why would it suddenly stop working? My mind raced as I tried to troubleshoot the issue. Mr. Liu strolled over with his teacup in hand, took one glance, and said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Zhou—I know how to handle this.” He sat down, clicked around a few times, and just like that, he logged in successfully, leaving me staring blankly at the screen. Luckily, I didn’t bring anyone along this time; otherwise, I’d have been teased again: “Master, are you sure you actually work in software?”

I do make software—even if I’m not writing all the code myself anymore, I still give the final approval. But after building so many systems, it’s genuinely impossible to remember every single feature. The clients’ staff use these tools every day, so they often know them far better than I do. They come up with clever tricks that leave me utterly confused. Over the years, I’ve come to realize something: once software is delivered—especially ERP systems—it seems to magically sprout new features that even its own creator doesn’t recognize. In our tech support group chat, people are constantly asking how to tweak this setting or configure that function, and sometimes I’m completely clueless. More often than not, my reply is simply, “Let me take a look.” Which really means: I need to open up the software first, find where that feature is, figure out how it works, teach myself all over again—and only then dive into the source code before I can offer any real help.

So yes, I do build software—but strictly speaking, maybe I’m not really a “software guy” anymore. Most of my energy and livelihood now lie in another field entirely, one I’ve been running for years… Wait, hold on—the tech group just pinged me again:

—“Mr. Zhou, why isn’t the delivery note color setting taking effect?”

—“Let me take a look.”