alt Hacker NewsHard disagree with the initial assumption: Abstractions do not make a system simpler.
Note: I would have added usually but I really do mean always.
Replies
love2read • yesterday at 10:52 PM
the thing about abstractions is that nothing implies that they aren’t leaky abstractions, which may be worse than no abstraction for future bug hunters
I’m curious what you think an abstraction is. Even running “ls” involves several layers of abstraction: a shell, a process (abstracts memory), a thread (abstracts CPU)… you think it would be simpler if you had to deal with all that to list a directory (another abstraction)? Even bits are an abstraction over analog voltage levels.