Lead · Tool Comparisons
A button component spawning 23 variants in 18 months isn't a sign of a careless team — it's a sign that the communication cost of extending a shared component was sometimes genuinely higher than writing a new one.
Cora Mitchell
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September 05, 2026
An engineer running a component library audit at their own team found a set of numbers worth every team relying on a component library taking note of: a single button component, originally designed to be "reusable," had spawned 23 different prop combinations across 47 separate implementations over 18 months; a bundle size analysis showed teams were importing the entire component library while...