Here is Alan Kay in an early article about software: "The intent of these examples is not to get everyone to drop all programming in favor of spreadsheets[...]Users must be able to tailor a system to their wants. Anything less would be as absurd as requiring essays to be formed out of paragraphs that have already been written."

My first impression is that this crank had it all wrong, that programming is more or less irrelevant now to the vast majority of computer users. But then I looked him up. As it turns out, Dr. Kay is responsible for 1) the idea of personal computing, 2) the laptop, 3) the overlapping window interface, 4) object-oriented programming, 5) workstations, 6) EtherNet, 7) Laserprinting, 8) Client-servers, 9) 3-D graphics, and 10) ARPANet (later, the internet)

So let's revisit that early pronouncement and turn it on it's head. I think we HAVE reached the day when we require essays to be formed out of paragraphs that have already been written. Welcome to the metasphere.