Matt Pocock: Use MORE Abstractions in the AI Age to Constrain Agents
mattpocockuk · x · 2026-10-04
Developer Matt Pocock, after chatting with @poteto, argues the opposite of the common take: in the AI age we should use more abstractions, not fewer.
- Abstractions plus harsh lint rules shrink the design space available to an agent, constraining it to good decisions.
- High-leverage abstractions let you do more with less code, so they are more token-efficient.
- Unwinding the damage from a bad abstraction is much cheaper with agents.
He pushes back on the idea that agents just want to read raw code: they can, but that is not maximally efficient. His conclusion: be braver and design abstractions.
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