Frameworks and Libraries and Leaky Abstractions

Published on Jun 30, 2023 (updated Jul 26, 2023), filed under development, frameworks. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)

Code generation tools [including frameworks and libraries] which pretend to abstract out something, like all abstractions, leak, and the only way to deal with the leaks competently is to learn about how the abstractions work and what they are abstracting. So the abstractions save us time working, but they don’t save us time learning.

Joel Spolsky in his famous article, The Law of Leaky Abstractions (2002). Emphasis mine.

This feeds the frameworks paradox (but not the CSS art one), and it is what contributes to the cost of frameworks. But I’m not Joel Spolsky, and this is just a brief post with a quote wondering about shortcuts.

This said, two much longer “posts” are coming up next month: I’m going to release an AI-supported philosophical experiment with The Problems With All the Good Things, as well as the next edition of The Web Development Glossary—The Web Development Glossary 3K. Stay tuned!

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I’m an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O’Reilly, dxsrc). You’ll like my work if you value principled, pragmatic problem-solving. Let’s connect.