what keeps standing, running, or working long after the people who built it stopped explaining themselves.
means the durable imprint an engineer, team, or design leaves on the world, measured in decades of function rather than press coverage.
from the phrase borrows legacy from inheritance law, but engineers stole it to describe systems and structures that outlive their creators contracts, budgets, and sometimes their civilizations.
pantheon dome — unreinforced concrete, standing since 128 ad, still the largest of its kind
apollo guidance computer — 36kb of memory, still inspires modern flight software design
brooklyn bridge — opened 1883, carries 150000 vehicles daily on 19th century steel
linux kernel — torvalds 1991 hobby project now runs most of the internet