I think they hoped this law would encourage sites that people don't expect to have cookies to not set cookies until necessary.
Like state sponsored news sites for example. I mean, really: why on earth does a site like that need to set cookies? To remember which videos I have watched?
The real problem here is probably Google Analytics.
For learning languages, I used to make my own flashcards and then search audio that contained the word.
Then I discovered that there are apps with pre-filled cards that already have the audio such as MosaLingua (http://www.mosalingua.com/en).
I think the point made here is quite interesting: instead of relying on (puppet, chef,...) to do the "deltas", always generating the whole system from scratch. This has a couple of advantages:
* You make sure everything is automated
* You can always trust the resulting system works; if it were to be built from scratch
I also have the same problem the author has sometimes: If I know that there are a lot of tests covering a particular piece of code, I tend to be less diligent making modifications
I totally agree with you there, but wouldn't it be even better if we limit the amount of new stuff we haven't tried yet to a size small enough to keep it in our heads? This way, we can eliminate the need for specs; discussing ideas though speech.