> ..it's worth thinking about how the particular abstraction mechanisms used in software impact a new contributor's productivity, vs. the productivity of someone more familiar with the codebase, especially for projects that are developed in the open, or with high developer turnover.

Oh yes. I work on this[1], and require very little inducement to talk about it[2].

[1] http://akkartik.name/about

[2] For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13565743#13570092