You're missing the point entirely. Joel's criticism targets PEOPLE not IDEAS. See the blog post title. There's nothing wrong with abstractions as an idea. The

You're missing the point entirely. Joel's criticism targets PEOPLE not IDEAS. See the blog post title. There's nothing wrong with abstractions as an idea. The issue is when folks apply them in inappropriate and unnecessary ways. When a smart, motivated, and caring person programs a computer then sensible abstractions will naturally emerge. A complex proprietary formula will not be copy-pasted because of course that's a bad idea. These judgement calls are important! Globals are not always bad. Some data is truly global and should not be instanced, so to speak. God classes are not always bad. Sometimes it's important to isolate experimental behavior from everything else and get it done quickly. Throw it into a class, throw the class into a file, mash a bunch of code in there, and test it out. If it works out then refactor it. Primitives are not always bad. Data structures are not zero cost! The amount of times I've seen a "well crafted" (???) data structure tank performance by orders of magnitude is just sad. > It's odd that the author rails against "astronauts" without addressing the very real motivations that lead to good architectures. Like all design, there are tensions in software development, and navigating the forces pulling you in opposite directions regarding architecture is one of the most important contribution you can make. This paragraph is over-engineered.