I'm not sure I saw the basic yin/yang tension explicitly described that I would like to see.

Back in the 80s, the earliest Mac interface guidelines said something to the effect of "eschew modes". There were lots of reasons for that. Some argue that as more people are familiar with computers, it's reasonable for the standards of good design to change.

But. Gigantic numbers of buttons are kind of a consquence of avoiding modes.

I don't think I need to reiterate all the bad things about modes, because quite a few were mentioned in the article, including life and death situations with military aircraft.

Quote: "segment our interface into a much larger number of smaller pages, each of which serves a specific function" - those are modes!

There's no right answer, and the article covers a lot of the ground, but I think the end of it is unbalanced, because it's fundamentally about a duality with no resolution, where intelligent people have argued for the opposite of the final advice.

There's nothing really wrong with the article, except it avoids the keyword that connects to significant history that shows both sides have merit. "Mode" is not used once.

The older I get, the more depressing it is when I see someone rediscovering something without recognizing it.