[denart2203]

Very insightful. I like thinking about software complexity and one of the concerns there to deal with complex software is that the design and intentions should be communicated (which means either documentation or exist as a common understanding of purpose and function).

From your perspective, it means that there is also a need to establish agreements on the levels, depth and ways abstractions in the code are formed. Indeed, I worked with software where the functions and operations weren't implemented in a messy way per sé, but the many levels of indirection, abstraction (and obscurement) made things just really difficult to read and a real tail-chaser when it came to maintenance.

Those levels can also make it much more difficult to understand the flow and the operations that are happening, because in many languages you pass references to data objects, so data gets changed in many ways.

Nice article, puts me into thinking mode again! :)