This is a good article, and the quote in the middle is absolutely amazing -- it belongs up there with some of the most insightful quotes about software ever (and it was not even directly about software).
I sum the quote up as, "Systems are sentient beings like the One True Ring, and they will absorb you. Soon, though you believe you are thinking freely, you will actually be merely a part of the System, thinking what it wants you to think." So true!
But ... Taco Bell programming still creates a new system. That's a flaw in the article's premise.
If you solve a problem by stringing together 11 tools, then yes, you should get some benefits from reusing preexisting tools. But now, you have a system with some rube goldberg characteristics, plus you've written a bunch of "glue code" (which is "new code") in the process.
Those systems can often turn out to be more complex.
I sum the quote up as, "Systems are sentient beings like the One True Ring, and they will absorb you. Soon, though you believe you are thinking freely, you will actually be merely a part of the System, thinking what it wants you to think." So true!
But ... Taco Bell programming still creates a new system. That's a flaw in the article's premise.
If you solve a problem by stringing together 11 tools, then yes, you should get some benefits from reusing preexisting tools. But now, you have a system with some rube goldberg characteristics, plus you've written a bunch of "glue code" (which is "new code") in the process.
Those systems can often turn out to be more complex.