Abstractions hide irrelevant details, heavy emphasis on the word irrelevant. "Abstractions" over relevant details are bad abstractions. Relevant is not an absol

Abstractions hide irrelevant details, heavy emphasis on the word irrelevant. "Abstractions" over relevant details are bad abstractions. Relevant is not an absolute term. Details are relevant or irrelevant in different circumstances, so you can't concretely say whether any given abstraction is good or bad - it depends on the context. But given that the details actually are irrelevant, then abstractions improve clarity, not detract from it, because you are not hiding any information that would help to clarify. My favourite example is navigational directions. If you ask me for directions to a particular building, I could say "It's the building on the left of the XYZ building in the city." If you know where the XYZ building in the city is, this is very clear and concise. It's much better than if I had instead said "Okay well from here, go North for 100m, then turn left, then continue going straight for 1km, then turn right, ..." If you don't know where the XYZ building is, the latter directions are more helpful.