The hammer analogy seems overdone. The framework , lets say , caters to 60% of your needs (being cautious here). OTOH, If your needs are pretty specific, and yo

The hammer analogy seems overdone. The framework , lets say , caters to 60% of your needs (being cautious here). OTOH, If your needs are pretty specific, and you go minimalistic, then you build 60% of your functionality by hand. Yes, code bloat can cause issues, with unused features. I'd rather not spend time building mundane features, and especially in Java. Now if the language you code in, suffers from a lack of good frameworks, but that's a different issue. I wouldn't comment too much on Java, due to an intrinsic dislike for the J2EE environment (and all its baggages - maybe baggage that I have mentally). But in Python I've not found a distasteful framework. There's no single framework that can be like a Swiss army knife, though framework fanatics, by definition will sell that vision.