He shows an example of indirection without abstraction, then blames abstraction. His point isn't wrong, the problem is that he's confusing abstraction with any

He shows an example of indirection without abstraction, then blames abstraction. His point isn't wrong, the problem is that he's confusing abstraction with any form of indirection. He claims that abstractions increase cognitive load when in fact the opposite is true. Bad abstractions and indirection without abstraction increase cognitive load. I agree with him that abstractions should be crafted carefully, but not because abstractions are categorically bad. If he thinks abstraction is so bad, why does he write software at all? Software is extremely abstract, even assembly language is an abstraction of what the CPU does. Human language is abstract too: we can talk about trees without having to consider any specific tree. Abstraction is a fundamental building block of human civilization. Of course, he doesn't actually believe that abstractions are bad. It would be nice if he differentiated between good abstraction and bad abstraction. On a side note: I take issue with his criticism of mocking. Good abstractions are easily mocked and make the code base easier to understand because you don't have to consider every detail of the application at the same time. On the other hand, mocking concrete objects,[0] rather than abstract roles, definitely complicates things. [0] Or "header interfaces" that duplicate the API of a concrete class exactly : https://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/HeaderInterface.html https://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/HeaderInterface.html