> Writing a bunch of stuff from scratch every time is not particularly productive either.
If you were to describe that in offline terms applications would be like books and abstractions would be like parts of the books. In order to make effective use of the book you still have to read, from scratch (whatever that means). When you become well versed in reading and writing it doesn't feel like a chore and you become far more efficient at it than simply guessing at the material from selected paraphrases. Programming is no different.
I'm not really sure what you're saying at all? It seems like we have agreed but I simply cannot comprehend your example.
The point I was making is that we could all spend our time going as deep as possible with as little abstraction as possible and end up writing stuff in assembly because "it's important to know how something works".
There is always a cost/benefit with abstraction when it comes to getting things done.
If you were to describe that in offline terms applications would be like books and abstractions would be like parts of the books. In order to make effective use of the book you still have to read, from scratch (whatever that means). When you become well versed in reading and writing it doesn't feel like a chore and you become far more efficient at it than simply guessing at the material from selected paraphrases. Programming is no different.