[hburd]

Software engineering is about solving real problems. The only time you need to write malleable software is when the problem needs a malleable solution.

Pushing for everyone to write malleable software sounds like telling people to forget about the particular problems that they are solving, and telling them to solve a general problem instead. Now you’re writing a complicated system for general use, rather than a simple solution for a well-defined problem. Your solution will now take longer to develop, be harder to understand and MUCH harder to test properly (way more use cases).

Obviously some problems need general solutions. But if every problem needed a general solution nobody would get anything done.

[saagarjha]

> The only time you need to write malleable software is when the problem needs a malleable solution.

The point is that it’s very difficult to account for this beforehand, especially as the author of the software. (“What do you mean we should make this an option? 5 works for me, and I’ll change it in the code if it doesn’t!”) When designing software, it’s always nice to give a thought to “if I were using this and I wanted to change it, how would I do so?” and seeing if there’s anything you can do to improve that.