Ancient Greece vs. Soviet Russia

Spotted in David Buck - Blog :

There are two conflicting forces driving software development. The first force tries to help developers by giving them the tools and environments that let them do anything they need to do to solve the problem at hand. They give the programmer the freedom to create whatever solutions they deem necessary.

......

Do restrictions in the environment help? I believe that they only help a little and usually cause more harm than it's worth. They increase finger typing, hinder productivity, slow down development, increase refactoring efforts, and decrease code readability