Right, however don't forget there is a continuum of software types. The great majority of the code I write is customization of previous software for a new clien

Right, however don't forget there is a continuum of software types. The great majority of the code I write is customization of previous software for a new client. If you write enough business software, you will find out there are about 5-10 main components that they all have, and each new project differs only in how they're assembled, and the per-client business rules used to orchestrate them. For example, it took me months to implement a decent RBAC system in CLOS; prototyping it literally took hours, just reading the wikipedia page. However, I had to refine that after every client, not just customizing it for the client, but iterating over it to make future customization unnecessary. Billing, accounting, collaboration, knowledge management, human resources, lead management, CRM, inventory, etc. Do web-based implementations of those for a year and you will end up with the core necessary to ship any business software product in a very short time, assembling from your own repo. Augment that with web APIs (which I happily pay for) and you're there. Another thing that I have become expert at is using other people's software. I am a hopeless cliki addict, mainly because I rarely code to scratch an itch; I have been writing Lisp code for years now, and for the last year, that's what I did full time :-) I have come to know huge libraries so intimately, including their quirks, that I can patch together something fairly quickly and get it out of the door.