I might have to say some unkind things here, but statements like: instead of “duplication is cheaper than the wrong abstraction”, I would say “duplication i

I might have to say some unkind things here, but statements like: instead of “duplication is cheaper than the wrong abstraction”, I would say “duplication is cheaper than confusing code littered with conditional logic”. seems like it's looking at this problem from an extremely narrow context. The truth is that the phrase "wrong abstraction" is (more or less) unquantifiable, which makes the original phrase, as employed, sort of like a koan. It addresses the very human tendency to see patterns in noise, and our ability to "transmit" such hallucinations to other humans via natural language and other means. The closest I can get to - given my at-best-apprentice status as a formal programmer - is the quantitative test I developed for CCS (conditional content systems), where the abstraction lies in the SNS[1], and the de-duplication mechanism is applicability[2]. Since each applicability statement carries its own overhead, there's a limit on how much "abstraction" the model can take before it's using quantitatively more keystrokes than duplication. The test goes like this: take the flat text procedures for ALL the configurations, and add it together. Now, take the conditionalized, applicability-laden procedure that unifies the procedure, and measure its file size. If the latter is LARGER than the former, then you're using the wrong SNS/applicability model for rolling up this content. Thing is, this is inevitable if you throw enough dissimilar configurations at a CCS, because each configuration has its own overhead, and eventually that outpaces the content itself. You can address this in a bunch of ways - like adding a containing pseudo-product that has all the configurations inside of it - but the actual real Product Management might not let you build on the applicability like that, because the Product itself isn't sold that way. Any other abstraction isn't available to you, because in the end this is natural language, which - unlike structured language - resists first order abstractions really well. This is one of those instances where, yes, the abstraction of the SNS/Applicability is worse - quantifiably - than duplication. All that complexity would be better handled via version control fork/branch relationships - far outside of the realm of natural language. [1] standard numbering system, a sort of numeric designator of functional systems, the primary way that content is designated as semi-independent modules. [2] conditional "chunks" that turn on and off depending on the applicability statement