This has the advantage that you don't need an extra framework/dependency to handle DI, and it means that dependencies are usually much easier to trace (because you've literally got all the code in your project, no metaprogramming or reflection required). There are limits to this style of DI, but in practice I've not reached those limits yet, and I suspect if you do reach those limits, your DI is just too complicated in the first place.
I think most people using these frameworks are aware that DI is just automated instantiation. If your program has a limited number of ways of composing instantiations, it may not be useful to you. The amount of ceremony reduced may not be worth the overhead.
This conversation repeats itself ad infinitum around DI, ORMs, caching, security, logging, validation, etc, etc, etc... no, you don't need a framework. You can write your own. There are three common outcomes of this:
* Your framework gets so complicated that someone rips it out and replaces it with one of the standard frameworks.
* Your framework gets so complicated that it turns into a popular project in its own right.
* Your app dies and your custom framework dies with it.
I'm not suggesting a custom framework here, I'm suggesting no DI framework at all. No reflection, no extra configuration, no nothing, just composing classes manually using the normal structure of the language.
At some point this stops working, I agree — this isn't necessarily an infinitely scalable solution. At that point, switching to (1) is usually a fairly simple endeavour because you're already using DI, you just need to wire it together differently. But I've been surprised at the number of cases where just going without a framework altogether has been completely sufficient, and has been successful for far longer than I'd have originally expected.
This has the advantage that you don't need an extra framework/dependency to handle DI, and it means that dependencies are usually much easier to trace (because you've literally got all the code in your project, no metaprogramming or reflection required). There are limits to this style of DI, but in practice I've not reached those limits yet, and I suspect if you do reach those limits, your DI is just too complicated in the first place.