An extension of this is what I call problem solving by differentiation. People who don't understand the problem space defer the part they don't understand by cr

An extension of this is what I call problem solving by differentiation. People who don't understand the problem space defer the part they don't understand by creating premature abstraction upon premature abstraction. In their head they seem to be slicing up the problem until there is none left, but in practice this continues until they finally understand the core domain problem or someone who does gets assigned. But those layers of abstraction don't die...