[cpeterso]

My favorite quote about abstraction is from Edsger Dijkstra:

”The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.”

If only the “A” in API stood for “abstraction”. For many APIs, it probably stands for “accreted”. :)

[MaxBarraclough]

That's a great quote. This topic turned up a couple of weeks ago in another thread. [0] The excellent talk Constraints Liberate, Liberties Constrain, by Runar Bjarnason, gets at the same point, and even uses this same Dijkstra quote. [1]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40021696

[1] https://youtu.be/GqmsQeSzMdw?t=874 (this takes you right to the Dijkstra quote)