Deep Purple, jQuery and the role of legacy

There are people, groups, works and topics that are old just in terms of age, and everyone and their dog wants to replace them for good, often for their age alone. But that turns out to be a wild goose chase, since these are so good at what they do, and/or they command so much mindshare, that they keep going for decades. See Emacs, Vim, COBOL, paperbacks, notebooks, email.

Then there are those that become the talk of the town for a good few months before they fade away into irrelevance. Like the mongoose bat. Or Clubhouse. Or dalgona coffee.

Lastly, there are those rare gems that do indeed get less and less attention with each passing day, because the environment they operate in has become increasingly resistive, or even actively hostile, to what they do. Mentioning them in a discussion inevitably invokes reactions about “good old days” or “WTF is that?”, both of which are unequivocal indications of their perceived irrelevance in the present.

This may sound very much like the previous type, but there’s a major difference. These people, these groups, these communities are very much alive. Their minds are unaffected by the lack of attention they get.

They have a singular focus: to create the best of what they do, both in spirit and in execution.

They care not about likes and downloads, nor about money and fame (any more). They care only about serving their most dedicated fans/customers/patrons.

jQuery was a revolutionary library in 2006. It was the de facto tool for web development for the next few years, and made it well into the next decade, even after component frameworks took over. But by 2015, it would raise eyebrows to mention that you were going to start a new project in jQuery.

On January 17, 2026, a strange blog post showed up on my screen. jQuery 4.0.0 had been released.

20 years is the equivalent of one galactic rotation in the web development world. And yet, there is a perfectly usable library for anyone who prefers that over the so-called state of the art. The new version of jQuery still supports IE11.

This community deserves far more respect than anything that comes out of Microsoft.

In a completely different arena, I have observed a similar example.

Deep Purple are a classic rock band famous for their 1970s hits like “Smoke on the Water” and “Highway Star”. They have many other brilliant songs that seldom make it to top 10 lists, like “Sail Away”, “Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming” and “Soldier of Fortune”.

Unlike their contemporaries, this band kept releasing songs long after the hard rock culture of the 70s had lost steam and their specific brand of music no longer made the charts like it used to. Nonetheless, Deep Purple are still active, still touring and still making remarkable rock music. Most members have white hair and wrinkled skin. Their performance, on the other hand, is as powerful as ever.

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been able to see them perform live in 2023. I was born well after their prime, let alone having grown up and being able to spend money on concerts. And yet, they were there to dazzle me and thousands of others who otherwise wouldn’t have dreamt of this opportunity.

Their latest album came out in 2024. It was excellent, and from the looks of it, not their last.

Had a friend once, in a room
Had a good time but it ended much too soon
In a cold month, in that room
We found a reason for the things we had to do

— “When a Blind Man Cries” by Deep Purple