I had a very different reading of the article, colored by my own bad experience.
Sometimes you start off with this cool idea/hack to solve a problem that could have been solved some other way. But your cool hack solves the problem and more! Then your fellow team members all want it to be even more powerful, and your cool hack slowly grows into a monstrosity.
In these situations, often your manager did not particularly want you to do this, but he let you do what you want. He does want you to be productive, and this doesn't count for that much. But since the team is now dependent on you, he does expect you to maintain it. You now end up with two jobs: The one your manager hired you for, and maintaining this thing.
I would love to write my own DSL to solve a problem at work, and this post read to me as a cautionary tale on pursuing that goal - unless management is aligned with your vision. If they're not, solve it the boring (and perhaps nonideal) way.
Sometimes you start off with this cool idea/hack to solve a problem that could have been solved some other way. But your cool hack solves the problem and more! Then your fellow team members all want it to be even more powerful, and your cool hack slowly grows into a monstrosity.
In these situations, often your manager did not particularly want you to do this, but he let you do what you want. He does want you to be productive, and this doesn't count for that much. But since the team is now dependent on you, he does expect you to maintain it. You now end up with two jobs: The one your manager hired you for, and maintaining this thing.
I would love to write my own DSL to solve a problem at work, and this post read to me as a cautionary tale on pursuing that goal - unless management is aligned with your vision. If they're not, solve it the boring (and perhaps nonideal) way.