Soft Abstraction

SoftAbstraction is a mindset in which one assumes or agrees that perfect abstractions are impossible (AllAbstractionsLie). But abstractions are still needed for any kind of productivity. One needs to find way to take advantage of known patterns (repetition) without being "married" to those patterns so that they are not stymied by the times they don't occur (EightyTwentyRule) or don't quite fit our abstraction mechanism. It is essentially an agreement to abandoning idealism without abandoning abstraction in general. We need to find ways to live in harmony with LeakyAbstractions. --top

Let's say, for the sake of arguement, that you are correct in stating that AllAbstractionsLie. Why do we need a phrase that appears to be a type of abstraction, but is actually an attitude towards abstraction. What does this phrase gain you (besides confusion) that AllAbstractionsLie does not?

BTW, I strongly disagree with the truth of both AllAbstractionsLie and LeakyAbstraction. In the examples I've seen on those pages (and in the article), the abstractions didn't leak. Instead the problems were caused by assumptions being made that were not supported by the abstraction.

CategoryAbstraction