Thanks for sharing! This is really interesting, especially the part about the reduced count of abstraction layers. Do you think the abstraction layers are the problem, or the fact that the overwhelming majority of "abstractions" that materialize in modern high-level software are leaky?
Why adding abstraction layers makes programming easier?
Because allow the programmer to not think (and even know) about some things and leaving them to the layer/libraries.
But every layer adds also a level of obscurity. The interaction between multiply layers is even more undefined and random.
It is OK while everything goes as expected. But when there are problems, the obscurity can make the debugging a hell.
In addition, the behavior of the bugs hidden deep in the layers (or in the way the layers interacts in between and with the application) can be really weird.
That is why, IMHO, the programmer should keep the abstraction layers to the minimal count that allows solving programming tasks with minimal effort, counting not only the coding time, but debugging and supporting time as well.
In my practice, I decided that using FASM with Fresh IDE and set of assembly libraries gives me the needed quality of the code.
