> it is actually possible to write highly-reusable code that is clean, understandable, and not "over-engineered" This is true for systems where you already hav

> it is actually possible to write highly-reusable code that is clean, understandable, and not "over-engineered" This is true for systems where you already have working code and you have multiple concrete examples of code that would benefit from refactoring or rewriting a reusable module. I think the skepticism is more toward the idea that you should design for reuse up front before you have working code. There are two failure modes. One is that you spend time making something reusable that you only end up using in one place. The other is that you bake assumptions into the code that later turn out to be false. In both cases, the resources spent on reusability could have a net negative impact on the project.