Writing code that solves a whole class of problems is hard and that's what makes it fun. You get to flex your best engineering muscles, build a towering cathedral of abstraction, and feel rewarded when it all clicks into place and begins to work. ❤️
Yes the work took longer but think of all the time you'll save later!
- No more repetitive copypasta,
- fewer debates about the right way to do something (as long as everyone likes yours),
- no more explaining how things work (you wrote great documentation right?),
- and if something breaks there's 1 place to fix (ignoring the one-off exceptions you'll build over time)!
You explain to the waiting stakeholders that this was pre-work. An investment. It's going to pay back.
Except here's the thing:
Your abstraction is wrong, people don't understand how it works, and you'll soon find a bunch of exceptions that are near impossible to fit into your generalized approach. Yes we want this component to have the same behavior everywhere ... except on pages A and B where it needs a subtle change. Oh and C where everything is the same except in reverse. And we're not yet sure about D.
A few months pass and the next engineer says "This code looks messy ... lots of exceptions. Let me build a wrapper to make it easier".
Your codebase grows into a rickety pile of abstractions that nobody understands or dares to touch. Who knows what might break when every engineer for the past 5 years tried to build The One True Unifying Way Of Our System and never had the time to finish their grand vision.
Abstract code is hard to understand
Abstractions are fine. Encouraged even. You cannot write custom one-off code for everything. But there is a cost.
The big danger with abstract code is that you have to wade through layers of lettuce before you find code that does something. Keeping track as you bounce between files and functions is limited by your working memory and familiarity with the codebase.
Nothing worse than jumping through 5 abstract abstract wrapper wrappers before you find code that *does* something.
— Swizec Teller (@Swizec) July 26, 2023
As you build experience you can skim the code and look for common patterns instead of reading every line carefully. Similar to how chess experts think in higher level shapes instead of individual pieces, which gives them an almost magical ability to memorize complex plays. The more experienced you are as an engineer, the quicker you learn these patterns for a new codebase.
But unlike a chess board, you can't look at the entirety of your codebase. It's split among many contexts – files and folders. Every time you jump between files feels like walking into the kitchen and going "Why did I come here?". That's the doorway effect – you really do forget some of what you were doing when crossing a context boundary.
And because others work on the same code, you never know when something's gonna change. Your memory of how it works could be wrong!
The trick, then, is to keep related code close together to reduce context boundaries and to limit the amount of relevant detail so it fits in your working memory.
Avoid the hammer factory factory
Overly abstracted code goes by many names. None of them meant as a compliment.
My favorite shorthand is the hammer factory factory. An apocryphal developer wanted a hammer to hang up a picture, but nobody uses hammers anymore. What you want is a hammer factory so you can build any hammer you want. But that's lame too. Nowadays you want a hammer factory factory so you can build any factory that creates whatever tool you need.
Yes you have 1 picture and 1 nail and a 2 minute task. But think of the next time!
Cheers,
~Swizec
Continue reading about Say no to abstract code
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