> But we've had a pretty good definition of abstraction since 1977, originally in the context of program analysis, and — I claim — it actually translates quite well into a precise definition of “abstraction” in engineering.
So I don't think the author is saying that all these other people are "wrong", but rather that this one particular definition seems to capture the underlying essence of what we intuitively think of when we say "abstraction", and the rest of the "hodgepodge of different concepts" break down if you analyze them a bit deeper (as the author did in the "Not Abstraction" section).
> But we've had a pretty good definition of abstraction since 1977, originally in the context of program analysis, and — I claim — it actually translates quite well into a precise definition of “abstraction” in engineering.
So I don't think the author is saying that all these other people are "wrong", but rather that this one particular definition seems to capture the underlying essence of what we intuitively think of when we say "abstraction", and the rest of the "hodgepodge of different concepts" break down if you analyze them a bit deeper (as the author did in the "Not Abstraction" section).