Meanwhile I do like reinventing the wheel. Or, more accurately, designing a wheel that fits my needs well.

Sure, I also use libraries for things that are just tedious, hard to get right or just some standard feature that's always used the same way. But you can overdo it.

Debugging my own code is annoying but doable. Debugging other people's code is a lot more tedious. Troubleshooting a mess of 1000 transitive dependencies because one package had version 10.0.6 instead of 10.0.5 and that caused an avalanche of breakage makes me reconsider my life choices.

There's a balance to be struck between your opposing opinions I imagine. I would just suggest solving the core business problems of your software in your own code, so that you have full control over them, can learn about your product from the building process, and can provide value through specializing your codebase.

> I don't like reinventing the wheel every time I build something

This is the crux of the difference, I think. I see open-source libraries as (mostly) mediocre code, usually massively bloated with features I don't need. Using them is like using an 18-wheeler to nip to the shops. I have found in my experience that it saves time in the long run to just write the minimal amount of code I need for the job, rather than dealing with the added complexity and dependency of adding a 3rd-party library.

I think that's an over generalisation, for every "world changing, do everything" trendy OSS library there's also a much simpler alternative maintained by a fellow grognard who just wants to write the bare minimum so you don't have to.

The alternative is adding my own mediocre code, with all the maintenance costs that incurs.

Ideally, I like to build on top of a batteries-included base. Failing that, I'd rather reinvent wheels than spend all my time impedance-matching with glue.

The problem with bizarre config files is that you repeatedly have to learn enough to make them work but then do not need to use that knowledge again until after you've long since forgotten and you have to start the learning process from scratch.

Exactly. Badly written libraries are just bad libraries, it doesn't mean that its a bad idea to build reusable components.

So you need a wheel, but you end up getting a whole car, and the wheels turn out to be octagons, which don't work great for your purpose (but basically work on more different terrains that different users had problems with?) ... and in half the time and one-hundredth the price you could have just made the round wheel you need.

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

-Carl Sagan