ASP.NET Is a Leaky Abstraction

ASP.NET Is a Leaky Abstraction:

In teaching someone about ASP.NET programming, it would be nice if I could just teach them that they can double-click on things and then write code that runs on the server when the user clicks on those things. Indeed ASP.NET abstracts away the difference between writing the HTML code to handle clicking on a hyperlink () and the code to handle clicking on a button. Problem: the ASP.NET designers needed to hide the fact that in HTML, there’s no way to submit a form from a hyperlink. They do this by generating a few lines of JavaScript and attaching an onclick handler to the hyperlink. The abstraction leaks, though. If the end-user has JavaScript disabled, the ASP.NET application doesn’t work correctly, and if the programmer doesn’t understand what ASP.NET was abstracting away, they simply won’t have any clue what is wrong.

– Joel Spolsky, The Law of Leaky Abstractions, November 11, 2002

http://www.onenaught.com/posts/42/aspnet-is-a-leaky-abstraction