I also very much agree with this. I think it might be a sign of something deeper, though. When I design a library, I keep in mind that it might be used in a var

I also very much agree with this. I think it might be a sign of something deeper, though. When I design a library, I keep in mind that it might be used in a variety of contexts applied in a multitude of styles. In contrast, when I author a framework I expect the users to adhere to the principles of the framework. Whoever owns main() gets to dictate the terms. For a beginner or intermediate developer, this might be a relief. Once you reach the level where you have a good intuition for how to do things well, your primary focus will be the minimizing of complexity, and I can never shake the feeling that frameworks stand in contradiction to this goal. After all, they were designed for maximum generality, but are the abstractions envisioned really the ones you require? That's not to say that everyone should embark on a journey to build their own 50kloc framework. You might want to consider skipping the framework if 500 lines of compact, well-designed and thoroughly documented code can do the same job, though. And you can still use libraries for the truly complex parts.