I don't think it's about the act of creating an abstraction, but rather, about using these abstractions with a deficient understanding of the limitations and implications of these abstractions.
I agree with you that a significant amount of code is not fully understood by its authors. I see similar phenomena at work in many engineering projects. Relatively few engineers work at the component or board level, rather they work at the subsystem and system levels. They piece parts of systems together to make larger systems-of-systems (sound familiar, programmers?) often with a poor understanding of when the black-box abstractions they deal with can break down and cause havoc.
Currently fighting against this in my own workplace, where it's become clear that many engineers do not understand the system we support in sufficient detail to properly troubleshoot faults with that system.
I agree with you that a significant amount of code is not fully understood by its authors. I see similar phenomena at work in many engineering projects. Relatively few engineers work at the component or board level, rather they work at the subsystem and system levels. They piece parts of systems together to make larger systems-of-systems (sound familiar, programmers?) often with a poor understanding of when the black-box abstractions they deal with can break down and cause havoc.
Currently fighting against this in my own workplace, where it's become clear that many engineers do not understand the system we support in sufficient detail to properly troubleshoot faults with that system.