"Few paintings have lasted the test of time as the great wave of Kanagawa. It took Kanagawa 40 years before he drew the wave he is most known for."<p>The painting is by Hokusai. Kanagawa is a place.
A couple software examples off the top of my head are Richard Hipp with SQLite and Matthew Ahrens with ZFS. Both almost incomprehensibly sophisticated projects executed well over decades.<p>Neither are anything like a solo effort in the way these examples are, and it's hard to say what they'd be like without the long individual involvement.
In fantasy:<p>J R R Tolkien<p>Janny Wurts<p>M A R Barker<p>Ed Greenwood
Yes?<p><i>Growing up</i> in a retirement community you would be foolish to ignore the fact that some things don't start getting good for the first few decades.<p>Most everybody else doesn't have such overwhelming examples, and fail to realize it until much later in life, if ever.