[jillesvangurp]

The software crisis was proclaimed to exist as early as 1969. We never solved it. But we did massively improve the scope of what software can do. The natural state of software is always to be almost but not quite at the breaking point. This is actually fine. Occasionally something goes wrong and then we fix it. And we move on. But the amount of stuff that works just fine is actually constantly growing.

The average software project sits on ginormous mountain of existing software. Libraries, components, tools, operating systems, etc. As a percentage of the overall source code, the tiny bit you add is a vanishingly small proportion. All this stuff exists, is being maintained by someone, and replacing it with something else has very low economic value. It adds negative value when it doesn't work because then you have to fix it or deal with the problems it is causing. But if it works as advertised, it just levels the playing field. Because everybody else is at that level as well.

Your attention as a software engineer should be focused mainly on things that others don't have that are valuable. It's always been like that. What has changed over time is the amount of stuff that you no longer have to build or worry about that much. That's the value of cloud based services. You get a lot of decent quality stuff that you pay a premium for that would be very expensive to match with in house development. Reinventing wheels like that is not lean but stupid.