The text discusses the concept of "Roman roads" in data engineering, which refers to building reusable and modular data pipelines that can be leveraged to build new data products. The idea is inspired by the Roman Empire's extensive network of roads, which facilitated travel and trade across vast territories. In data engineering, these "roads" are represented by reusable entities such as data assets and operations, which can be used to transform and process data in a modular and efficient manner. The text introduces Dagster, a platform that models these components and enables the reuse of code throughout the data pipeline, allowing for incremental changes and faster development. By building Roman roads with Dagster, data teams can create a foundation for their future data products while minimizing the need to start from scratch.