The best devs delete code...

Good software development is fundamentally about removing complexity, not adding it. Using the shadcn radio button as a case study, the post illustrates how modern frontend stacks often replace native browser capabilities with multiple abstraction layers that recreate what the browser already handles natively — grouping, keyboard navigation, accessibility, and form submission. This pattern, called a shallow module, adds cognitive overhead without delivering deeper functionality. Drawing on Joel Spolsky's law of leaky abstractions and John Ousterhout's deep vs. shallow modules distinction, the argument is made that senior developers spend more time pruning codebases than writing new code. With AI-generated code increasing the volume of low-quality output, the ability to simplify and curate a codebase will become an increasingly critical skill.