> You need to know at least one level abstraction below your current one to use the tool effectively.
I'm not sure that's true in general.
For example, for some tools there's no single 'one level abstraction below'. Let's take regular expressions as a simple example. You can use them effectively, no matter whether your regular expression matcher uses NFAs or Brzozowski derivatives under the hood as the 'one level [of] abstraction below'.
(Just be careful, if your regular expression matcher uses backtracking, you might get pathological behaviour. Though memoisation makes that less likely to hit by accident in practice.)
I'm not sure that's true in general.
For example, for some tools there's no single 'one level abstraction below'. Let's take regular expressions as a simple example. You can use them effectively, no matter whether your regular expression matcher uses NFAs or Brzozowski derivatives under the hood as the 'one level [of] abstraction below'.
(Just be careful, if your regular expression matcher uses backtracking, you might get pathological behaviour. Though memoisation makes that less likely to hit by accident in practice.)