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Be Aware of the Makefile Effect

(blog.yossarian.net)
431 points thunderbong | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.21s | source
1. elcapitan ◴[] No.42664865[source]
I guess this is an effect of declarative programming and layered abstractions. The declarative syntax and abstraction are an answer to code being repetitive and long and hard to follow, but this then creates its own issues by making it harder to reason (especially for beginners or occasional users) about what is actually going on. The price for learning how to get it right just becomes much higher with every layer of abstraction inbetween, because you always have to learn what's going on underneath the "cushions" anyway.

For me typical examples are Terraform configurations with their abstracted configuration syntax, which just mimicks some other configuration (e.g. AWS) and executes it in an environment where I don't necessarily have access to. Of course I'm not going to run endless experiments by reading documentation, assembling my own config and running it in painful slow CI pipelines until it works. I'll rather copy it from another project where it works and then go back to work on things that are actually relevant and specific for the business.