I think this really is a good understanding of the monkey patching debate. Jeff Atwood and Reginald Braithwaite are living in two very different worlds, with their respective legitimate perspective on what's good and bad, with their own references/assumptions.<p>As it is often the case, there is no debate if you're clearly living in one of those 2 worlds. The fun starts when you happen to be in the gray zone (e.g. with a mid-size company), and you need to make trade-offs between the 2 perspectives.