[madsbuch]

I think the critics (myself included) perfectly understood that point.

> What they really mean is that good programmers should think ahead and craft their code with an eye minimizing future modifications.

The critique is exactly that this can not happen in real world projects because you can only speculate what requirements for the code base is down the road.

To counter this I usually apply two princinples:

1. Occam's razor - implement the simplest solution

2. Write code that is readable and understandable, so it is easier to change the code with the requirements.

The last being completely opposite to what the author of the article thinks.

The worst thing I can think of is somebody needlessly DRYing up a code base prematurely - this is in my opinion a junior behavior.