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Document Information

Type: Book page / document from house oversight committee
File Size: 1.87 MB
Summary

This page discusses the concept of "horizontal abstraction" in computer science, explaining how it simplifies tasks but has practical limitations described by Joel Spolsky's "Law of Leaky Abstractions." It uses the TCP/IP protocol as an example of how underlying implementation details (like packet loss) can "leak" through to the user experience, and theoretically connects this impossibility of perfect abstraction to the Halting Problem.

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Name Role Context
Joel Spolsky
Turing

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Key Quotes (4)

"Computer systems are built ‘on the shoulders of giants’."
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"Whenever we work at an abstract level, we risk being exposed to its inner guts at some point."
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"Joel Spolsky, a computer scientist who worked on Microsoft Excel, proposed the Law of Leaky Abstractions to explain this."
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Quote #3
"We know this is impossible, so non-leaky abstraction cannot exist."
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Quote #4

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