I agree that it's a fuzzy scale. What I usually pick out isn't the amounts of stuff but how much of it either goes against the grain or piles on abstractions wi

I agree that it's a fuzzy scale. What I usually pick out isn't the amounts of stuff but how much of it either goes against the grain or piles on abstractions without a simplifying payoff (reduced cognitive load). Basically it comes down to picking the right set of abstractions (choosing your chunks/seams) and good naming since the factors which are being separated aren't vague. Few things are 50/50--those cases rather tend to be "no one really knows yet". My phrasing is "you'll know good code when it's shown to you" where "you" is myself for my own work.