Wrong abstractions

• What happens when refactoring or DRYing code is done too early

  • Which can lead to redoing these abstractions

• duplication is far cheaper than the wrong abstraction

• The premature abstraction leaves an imprint for how code should be done in future, so future changes will try and maintain the abstraction which leads to worse code & complexity instead of creating a better abstraction

  • Sunk cost fallacy

Counter

• Wait for duplication to be repeated 3 times before abstracting

• Duplication is ok, up to a point

• When dealing with wrong abstraction

  • inline and start again, maybe extract out new abstraction if necessary

Signs

• If you find yourself passing parameters and adding conditional paths through shared code, the abstraction is incorrect.

Links

• https://sandimetz.com/blog/2016/1/20/the-wrong-abstraction

• https://alexkondov.com/the-cost-of-wrong-abstractions/

• https://www.codewithjason.com/duplication-cheaper-wrong-abstraction/

  • an opposite view

• https://blog.awesomesoftwareengineer.com/p/duplication-is-better-than-wrong-abstraction