> You're right that code is read many more times than it's written. That doesn't argue against abstraction — it argues for it. But it argues for choosing the ri

> You're right that code is read many more times than it's written. That doesn't argue against abstraction — it argues for it. But it argues for choosing the right abstractions, and that's where I feel like we do a poor job as an industry. Completely agree with this point. My go-to example of why abstraction should be used to increase readability is street directions. Imagine somebody asks you for directions to a restaurant, and consider how different your answer would be depending on how well the other person knows the city. If they are a tourist, you might need to give them very detailed directions, down to the level of "go forward X blocks, turn left, continue for Y blocks", etc. Conversely if they are a native, the directions could simply be "It's right next to Z". Obviously the latter directions are useless to the tourist but the former are far from ideal for the native -- it's just way to verbose, easy to forget and easy to get confused by. Understand your audience.