[jlokier]

A counterargument:

1 large, complex dependency (plus the 20 lines of wrapper code to transform your program's internal data to initialise and call the library) almost never just stays as 1 large, complex dependency (plus 20 lines of ...).

[jolux]

If you're truly just doing a 2x2 matrix manipulation once in the codebase, then I concede. I guess I'm blanking on situations where that would be the case though, or where more generalized capabilities wouldn't be useful.

[jlokier]

That's fair enough.

But I was really just wanting to show, via irony, that the structure of the original argument is self-annihilating.

That is, "X almost never stays as just X therefore X is bad" applies to both branches reasonably, and is therefore invalid as an argument in support of one branch.

[sagichmal]

> If you're truly just doing a 2x2 matrix manipulation once in the codebase

That is the precise premise of the hypothetical.

[jolux]

In fact it was not presented with that level of precision, it merely asked if one had to solve that particular problem and gave no indication about what other algorithms and manipulations the codebase might be using. And furthermore, I maintain that the original example is contrived until proven otherwise.