Re:Why I like Java
by beagle3 on Tuesday March 25, 2014 @07:28PM
(#7470101)
No. It is inexperienced programmers that add abstraction everywhere.
Abstraction has a huge mental cost (I ignore the execution speed cost, because it is mostly irrelevant these days for most projects).
You need more than one case to abstract over. Abstracting "just in case" is, much more often than not, very leaky - that is, requiring you to keep in mind the details of both the abstraction and the abstracted - and requires revision when you actually need it.
Abstraction is not magic, not cost free, although Java culture is to assume that it is both. (Same criticism for C++, BTW; C culture tends to err the other way -- which, in my experience, is the better error to make)
Abstraction has a huge mental cost (I ignore the execution speed cost, because it is mostly irrelevant these days for most projects).
You need more than one case to abstract over. Abstracting "just in case" is, much more often than not, very leaky - that is, requiring you to keep in mind the details of both the abstraction and the abstracted - and requires revision when you actually need it.
Abstraction is not magic, not cost free, although Java culture is to assume that it is both. (Same criticism for C++, BTW; C culture tends to err the other way -- which, in my experience, is the better error to make)