Comment by godelski

  > the solution to uncertainty is to pile abstraction on top of abstraction until no one can explain what’s actually happening anymore.

I've usually found complaints about abstraction in programming odd because frankly, all we do is abstraction. It often seems to be used to mean /I/ don't understand, therefore we should do something more complicated and with many more lines of code that's less flexible.

But this usage? I'm fully on board. Too much abstraction is when it's incomprehensible. To who is the next question (my usual complaint is that a junior should not be that level) and I think you're right to point out that the "who" here is everyone.

We're killing a whole side of creativity and elegance while only slightly aiding another side. There's utility to this, but also a cost.

I think what frustrates me most about CS is that as a community we tend to go all in on something. We went all in on VR then crypto, and now AI. We should be trying new things but it more feels like we take these sides as if they're objective and anyone not hopping on the hype train is an idiots or luddite. The way the whole industry jumps to these things just feels more like FOMO than intelligent strategy. Like making a sparkling water company an "AI first" company... its like we love solutions looking for problems