I'm not sure about it applying only to web-developers. It might be more focused on application-developers, where business requirements hit the UI. Developers working on services, libraries, frameworks, and platforms have different engineering needs where some of these guidelines don't apply (and others might).

I didn't see one point that was specific to web developers, or is that a dig on web-based software?

The pitfalls of over-abstraction, trying to be more generic than necessary, more "clever" than the business requirements, etc are platform agnostic.

> but I guess that is what is meant by "modern software"

That's what is meant by "modern software" if you just read on-line blogs. On-line tends to focus around on-line (also, it's hipstery and hot, so it gets lots of attention).

That said, the article is rather general and definitely applies to desktop-app programming too.

I completely disagree - I've been developing software since before the web, and I labored under (and against) all of these syndromes in the "desktop software" days, too.

His examples may have been skewed towards webdev, but I've seen all these things outside of that sphere (95% of my career has been systems and scientific programming).