tl;dr - this is about 'leaky abstractions' http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractio

tl;dr - this is about 'leaky abstractions' http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.htm... this was written about by Joel in 2002. This article probably dates before that, but is last modified circa 2003 (see other comment on that)