Because code reuse is hard. Like, really hard. If it weren't we wouldn't be laughing at left-pad. If it weren't hard we wouldn't have so many front-end JavaScript frameworks. If it weren't Unreal wouldn't still have their own GC and std-like implementation today. Java wouldn't have been reinventing build system every five years.

The whole history of programming tool is exploring how to properly reuse code: are functions or objects the fundamental unit of reuse? is diamond inheritance okay? should a language have an official package management? build system? should C++ std have network support? how about gui support? should editors implement their own parsers or rely on language server? And none of these questions has a clear answer after thousands if not millions of smart people attempted. (well perhaps except the function vs object one)

Electron is the ultimate effort of code reuse: we reuse the tens of thousands of human-years invested to make a markup-based render engine that covers 99% of use case. And everyone complains about it, the author of OP article included.

LLM-coding is not code reuse. It's more like throwing hands up and admitting humans are yet not smart enough to properly reuse code except for some well-defined low level cases like compiling C into different ISA. And I'm all for that.

I think you could also argue that LLMs in coding are actually just a novel approach at code reuse: At the microscopic level, they excel at replicating known patterns in a new context.

(Many small dependencies can be avoided by letting the LLM just re-implememt the desired behavior; ~ with tradeoffs, of course)

The issue is orchestrating this local reuse into a coherent global codebase.

The problems with leftpad are a problem with the NPM ecosystem, not with code reuse as such. There are other dependency ecosystems that don't have these problems.

>"well perhaps except the function vs object one"

If this is what I think it is, I consider it very lopsided view, failure to recognize what model fits for what case and looking at everything from a hammer point of view

I have terrible news: LLMs don't actually make it easier, though it feels like they do at first