I think it basically comes down to trust. Can you trust that the person who wrote the library isn't a dingbat, and that they've thought out the edge cases and c

I think it basically comes down to trust. Can you trust that the person who wrote the library isn't a dingbat, and that they've thought out the edge cases and composability of the interface they've designed, and that they've taken care that code actually does what it looks like it does, and confusing cases are either inexpressible or at least look confusing so you know you have to look closer. In short, can you trust the author to design interfaces well. Personally I don't think it's inherently good or inherently bad, it's just one of those things that makes good code better (concise & expressive) and bad code worse (inscrutable & brittle). Glass-half-full and glass-half-empty are both valid opinions on the matter, and I strongly suspect which way you leans towards depends heavily on the quality of other people's architecture that you have to deal with on a daily basis.