[mattmerc]

Respectfully, I see this as an oversimplification. Though, I can definitely understand why someone would say this and I do agree to some extent.

The thing is, I think there is a lot of subtlety in most implementations. Those subtleties come from unique requirements outlined by the client/business need/ or existing patterns.

As someone who has implemented a lot of CRUD functionality, I can honestly say there is very little code overlap between any two projects. Sure, the frontend calls the same CRUD endpoints. The backend essentially performs the same DB edits... but there's a lot to be considered before and after this. And no, it has nothing to do with just validation. It's about UX, performance, maintainability, extensibility, etc. All considerations when writing the code. When you're done the CRUD project, it's distinct. I think there's empirical evidence for this in the sense that the most we can abstract CRUD, is through CMSs. I've worked with a lot of clients that have great CMSs but still need to retain developers to support the CRUD ops and everything in between.

Is this the same type of "software engineering" employed as someone writing a custom backend for a electronic stock exchange? Likely not, though that's a whole other discussion.