What this article really boils down to is the usual coder arrogance: Thinking that most problems are inherently simple[1], thinking they are a better coder than

What this article really boils down to is the usual coder arrogance: Thinking that most problems are inherently simple[1], thinking they are a better coder than average, and thinking that the answer is always to do more yourself, so that more of the codebase will benefit from your superior skills. The truth is, there are no easy problems in programming. There are always a thousand corner cases and unexpected complexities. And all those buggy, unmaintained libraries you find in your language's package repository are still probably better than anything you're going to roll yourself. Look into the source code of such libraries and alongside the hacks and outdated code, you'll find hundreds of subtle problems avoided, because the author spent a long time and effort on the problem you've spent ten minutes thinking about. The answer to quality problems in software engineering is not less libraries, it's more and better libraries. In the same way that the high-quality civil engineering the author admires is not achieved by having one person do everything themselves, but by the successful collaboration of a large number of skilled and specialised subcontractors. Right now, we're still in the infancy of our industry. This, combined with continued the evolution of hardware capabilities has meant that software engineering has never had the long-term, stable base on which to build repeatable, reliable routes to success. That's fine. If we're in the same position in a couple of centuries, it's a problem, but right now we should be experimenting and failing. Even today, the situation is not as bleak as if often portrayed in articles like this. There are a huge number of robust and high-quality libraries and frameworks providing extremely complex capabilities in an easily reusable way. If a programmer from the mid-nineties were to be transported to the present, I suspect they'd be amazed by what off-the-shelf libraries enable even a single programmer to do. The undeniable quality problems that do affect much modern software often have more to do with the hugely increased scope of ambition in what we expect software to do for us. [1] Outside a handful, like encryption, that are acknowledged as hard for the purpose of being the exception that proves the rule.