The tower of abstractions we’ve built is indeed the stuff of nightmare fuel - we are just starting to see the results of what we’ve wrought! The articles example is great, another good one is all of the spectre and meltdown CPU arch bugs - these chips now how so many layered components working together, so complex that potential issues are hard to test or weird machines can be built were people least expect.
Break before make, abstractions, and sleazy ISPs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21169945 - Oct 2019 (30 comments)