Happy Monday, and welcome to the very first issue of The Coder Cafe! This week, our theme is code health, and we will start by discussing premature a

Premature Abstractions - by Teiva Harsanyi - The Coder Cafe

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2024-10-17 17:00:06

Happy Monday, and welcome to the very first issue of The Coder Cafe! This week, our theme is code health, and we will start by discussing premature abstractions.

Abstraction is the process of hiding complex implementation details by exposing only essential features and behaviors that are necessary for understanding or interacting with it. In simpler terms, an abstraction is a simplified representation of a concept.

Interfaces: Hide the complexity of one or more implementations, providing a consistent way to interact with different underlying systems.

Modules: Encapsulate a coherent set of functions or classes, offering a clear and simplified interface for interaction while hiding internal details.

Functions: Abstract away the complexity within a block of code, allowing us to focus on what the function does rather than how it achieves it.

Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about, or worrying about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when debugging and maintenance are considered. We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%.