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I think 'Law of Leaky Abstractions' is overrated. Abstractions always leak, the question is whether it is part of the API and explained or not. Another example

I think 'Law of Leaky Abstractions' is overrated. Abstractions always leak, the question is whether it is part of the API and explained or not. Another example that is not indices: async/await is a leak of the underlying implementation and inner working.

MaxBarraclough 9y ago
You've mentioned an abstraction but not explained why it's leaky. I agree that async/await leaks in places, such as in the surprising deadlocks that Stephen Cleary explains. I've met more than one pretty serious C# developer that wasn't aware of this. http://blog.stephencleary.com/2012/07/dont-block-on-async-code.html http://blog.stephencleary.com/2012/07/dont-block-on-async-co... > the question is whether it is part of the API and explained or not More broadly it's a question of pretending things can be wrapped up in tidy self-contained entities, and the idea that we can fully design away the messy details of reality. See also the Three Big Lies of C++ https://youtu.be/rX0ItVEVjHc?t=17m15s https://youtu.be/rX0ItVEVjHc?t=17m15s
- amirouche 9y ago
  My understanding is that async/await gives the promise to write asynchronous code like synchronous code. Except the use of 'await' it's true.
  - MaxBarraclough 9y ago
    All told I'd say it's an successful but imperfect abstraction. I've been very impressed by it all in all. Concurrent programming isn't easy, and it's not a silver bullet, but it's a great language feature. In an ideal world you'd just take existing synchronous code and throw async/await keywords at it to make it async. The abstraction isn't quite that successful, of course. See Stephen Cleary's AsyncEx library, which provides async-specific functionality such as AsyncLock, which doesn't exist in the standard library. https://github.com/StephenCleary/AsyncEx/wiki/AsyncLock https://github.com/StephenCleary/AsyncEx/wiki/AsyncLock

MaxBarraclough 9y ago

You've mentioned an abstraction but not explained why it's leaky. I agree that async/await leaks in places, such as in the surprising deadlocks that Stephen Cleary explains. I've met more than one pretty serious C# developer that wasn't aware of this. http://blog.stephencleary.com/2012/07/dont-block-on-async-code.html http://blog.stephencleary.com/2012/07/dont-block-on-async-co... > the question is whether it is part of the API and explained or not More broadly it's a question of pretending things can be wrapped up in tidy self-contained entities, and the idea that we can fully design away the messy details of reality. See also the Three Big Lies of C++ https://youtu.be/rX0ItVEVjHc?t=17m15s https://youtu.be/rX0ItVEVjHc?t=17m15s

amirouche 9y ago
My understanding is that async/await gives the promise to write asynchronous code like synchronous code. Except the use of 'await' it's true.
- MaxBarraclough 9y ago
  All told I'd say it's an successful but imperfect abstraction. I've been very impressed by it all in all. Concurrent programming isn't easy, and it's not a silver bullet, but it's a great language feature. In an ideal world you'd just take existing synchronous code and throw async/await keywords at it to make it async. The abstraction isn't quite that successful, of course. See Stephen Cleary's AsyncEx library, which provides async-specific functionality such as AsyncLock, which doesn't exist in the standard library. https://github.com/StephenCleary/AsyncEx/wiki/AsyncLock https://github.com/StephenCleary/AsyncEx/wiki/AsyncLock