I know very little about “mu” specifically, but the title is a highly under-appreciated point. I often notice a tendency to abstract complexity in clean looking

I know very little about “mu” specifically, but the title is a highly under-appreciated point. I often notice a tendency to abstract complexity in clean looking interfaces. While that’s convenient for simple projects with pre-envisioned use cases, when using the tool in some novel way often results in bugs due to the abstraction being leaky. For that reason, I personally prefer designs that are transparent, rather than one that attempts to paint a pretty exterior on top of internal complexity. (Obviously correct, rather than not obviously wrong) This leads to a subtle but crucial distinction between software “automating processes” without needing any humans in the loop -vs- amplifying the (expert) humans in the loop to do more stuff. Another subtle (but arguably more important) effect comes from McLuhan’s insight that the medium strongly influences the message. If the medium/tool is not transparent, then so are the biases imposed on the tool user. While that doesn’t lead to obvious bugs, it leads to strutting blinders on human thought processes and creativity. BTW, one last point, in case it isn’t obvious: this goal of transparency in software can be seen as underpinning the free software movement.