The Hawker Squawker

« October »
Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

About

Tag Cloud

Leaky Abstractions [Permalink]

As a computer programmer, this article caught my eye. It talks about how "abstractions" are not perfect. For all you lay readers, an abstraction is something that hides details and makes it easier to use something. For example, in order to drive a car, I don't have to know about how the car works. I just need to know a few simple things like filling the gas tank and turning on the ignition.

This article is an interesting read if you get some time; it talks about abstractions and how they�re not always perfect. Specifically, it talks about how as time goes on, computer abstractions get better and allow programmers to do more and more amazing things, but it comes at a cost.

Leaky Abstractions

Posted by shawker on Tuesday, 7 October 2003
Tags: tech

Comment by angeleno at Mon, 13 Oct 10:27 PM

Here's my musing -- computers do things stupidly and rapidly. They get the right result quickly enough to compensate for the silliness of the method. Until at last there is a problem that requires superior method.

Enter Comment

All comments are moderated

Your comment:

Author (*):

E-mail:

(not displayed)

URL:

Comment (*):

Remember me?

All comments are moderated

Your comment:

Live Comment Preview: