I understand the point behind this entirely. The Swiss Army Knife metaphor, however, is, in fact, a bad one, thought it seems all right initially. The key bit

I understand the point behind this entirely. The Swiss Army Knife metaphor, however, is, in fact, a bad one, thought it seems all right initially. The key bit is this: "By combining many products of low utility, it [the knife] becomes a product of some utility." False. The basic 440 stainless blade is of immense utility. So much so that many, myself included, choose to carry a pocket knife that contains nothing but a single blade. The Swiss Army knife sacrifices a small amount of the utility of a good blade (by making it slightly smaller and the handle less ergonomic) in exchange for significant additional functionality. Sure, the saw pretty much sucks, and the scissors are of minimal use, and so on. That's not the point, though, at all. It's that a Swiss Army Knife allows you to have those things at all in unexpected situations. It fits in your pocket and can help you build a lean-to significantly faster than with only a blade. The take-away, of course, is that what's important is not the feature list, but the use case(s). Joel Spolsky, via arethuza on this page [1]: "Unfortunately, it's never the same 20%. Everybody uses a different set of features." [2] For those who end up choosing a Swiss Army Knife as their best friend, having all that "bloat" around is precisely the point. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2922104 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2922104 [2] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html