The irony is that a digital information is theoretically lossless, but in practice software and hardware changes so fast that it is one of the most ephemeral things humanity has ever created.
So if you got into programming because you wanted to create something lasting, I think you are destined to be disappointed. But then again, all human endeavor, and indeed everything in our human experience, even the seas and the mountains and the stars are all ephemeral on some time scale. As the Buddhists say, the temporary nature of things is unavoidable and neutral, it's ones desire for permanence that causes a problem.
So if you got into programming because you wanted to create something lasting, I think you are destined to be disappointed. But then again, all human endeavor, and indeed everything in our human experience, even the seas and the mountains and the stars are all ephemeral on some time scale. As the Buddhists say, the temporary nature of things is unavoidable and neutral, it's ones desire for permanence that causes a problem.