'illusion' and 'readability' are interesting choices for words, given that both refer to how something is perceived. The argument I'd make is that the illusion

'illusion' and 'readability' are interesting choices for words, given that both refer to how something is perceived. The argument I'd make is that the illusion is the point when you're writing well abstracted code. The abstraction makes it possible to write code with the assumption that some specific detail is taken care of automatically. While it's true that the detail is hidden, that lets the author and reader of the code focus on other details that might be more important. Of course, this doesn't absolve anybody from needing to be at least somewhat aware of the abstractions, but hopefully most of the abstractions can fade into the background most of the time. (Anybody who's ever worked with a buggy compiler can attest to how frustrating it can be when this is not the case.)