Over-abstraction
Over-abstraction is when too much complexity has been removed or replaced, so that the underlying complexity becomes difficult to leverage. The risk with over-abstraction is that we either remove too much complexity in favor of simplicity or we add new unnecessary complexity that confuses the user of our abstraction.
For example, say that we are in need of a gallery abstraction that we want to use to display a gallery on both our website and various mobile applications. Depending on the platform, the gallery will use the interfaces available to produce the layout. On the web, it would produce HTML and DOM, but on a mobile application, it would use the various native UI SDKs available. The abstraction provides a lever to all ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access