The "scissor statement" ignores the very real fact that every individual system must be constructed with different tradeoffs and in a different context each tim

The "scissor statement" ignores the very real fact that every individual system must be constructed with different tradeoffs and in a different context each time. You will find that engineers in one environment might include LAPACK, but then the same engineer given a different context would roll their own algorithm. Unless they're not really an engineer. Engineering is pragmatic, not dogmatic. Your job is to do the good thing for your system, not to apply first principles to everything. Approaching it from a position of dogma is not engineering.