I don't think the book and program examples are equivalent. You can edit a manuscript easily but it'd be a big headache to edit a binary program either through a hex editor or decompiling it and figuring out what it all does. I think an equivalent would be receiving the finished source code, as though someone else coded it for you.

Anyway, if it's a personal project I want to do for the sake of it, then no, I like the process and the amount of control. If it's something I'm only doing because I want the end product then maybe, but would have to decide on a case by case basis.