Comment by gavmor

Yeah... this sounds a bit like the Alexandrian Pattern Language concepts which directly inspired the Gang of Four's Design Patterns.

I wonder, though, if what you're describing as "product primitives" actually maps more closely to what Alexander later called "Centers," rather than the patterns themselves.

From what I understand, while the software world heavily adopted his patterns, Alexander spent his later career arguing that the ultimate building block of a system is actually a Center: localized focal points of utility and coherence, eg a well-lit courtyard, window seat, or fireplace. A strong center is naturally composable; it "resolves local tension," is made of smaller centers, and acts as a building block to generate larger ones.

When a product feels confusing or bloated, it's rarely out of bad design intent. It's just that user needs—while not necessarily glaringly—are empirically discoverable, while the true, underlying "centers" that could elegantly solve them are incredibly subtle and hard to identify. The path of least resistance is almost always to just build a unique, rigid interface for the immediate user need right in front of you. Doing the deep architectural work to discover a core primitive that naturally absorbs those needs is difficult.

So maybe that's why we build so many faster horses.