I think the extremes are straw men. The choice isn't between "duct tape" or "oven-engineering." It's between poor and good design. A well designed solution doe

I think the extremes are straw men. The choice isn't between "duct tape" or "oven-engineering." It's between poor and good design. A well designed solution doesn't feel like duct tape, nor should it be "too clever" with a crazy multiple-inheritance architecture that no one but the author can understand. In fact, it sounds like the extremes described in this article are both crap developers, with different flavors of crap on the menu. I insist on solid engineering. Nothing that feels like duct tape, but nothing that approaches over-engineering either. Easy to understand and easy to extend to the point of "OF COURSE this makes sense!" It's not so much "in the middle" as "robust design vs one or another flavor of garbage." A strong designer is needed to get to that point, and maybe duct tape is better for shipping product than over-engineering, so if you HAVE to choose, the duct tape end of the spectrum is better. But even better to have a solid software architect who can come up with a good solution that people can use and extend and understand.