Guess we can throw away the fancy torches and just crank a handle like its 1890.

Tbh the part about keeping the old file around really got me. I did almost the exact same thing with a little guessing game I wrote in Python when I was learning. Spent weeks confused about why my functions kept returning nothing, turned out I never actually called them. Felt so dumb but once it clicked it clicked for good. Now whenever some new tool or library is kicking my butt, I go back and read that ugly old code and it calms me down. Your uncle sounds like he knew exactly what he was doing.

Did the same thing with the Wonderland Trail after a guy at the ranger station talked me out of a bigger loop in the Winds? My knees were fine but my head kept asking what the harder one would've felt like.