Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderWow. This is simply one of the best guides I've seen to anything...ever. It's uncommon for an online guide to have well-written text, even rarer for it to leverage HTML's structure and organization, and almost unheard of to incorporate interactive useful elements that gel with the textual sections. Well done.
I would like to point out that the whole article can be treated as a metaphor for one of the major themes of mathematical and computational/CS thinking, i.e., exploring generalizations and "meta-generalizations". (edit: well I guess I just repeated the title+conclusion of the article, since "generalization" is similar to "abstraction", so we have "abstraction and meta-abstraction" which is alluded by the title plus the conclusion that says it's not just one linear ladder but a multi-dimensional multi-faceted…
I remember reading this back in 2011 and thought it presented some amazing ideas. Later I've studied physics with focus on simulations (mechanical systems, spring models, gases and so forth) and I'll have to admit that I haven't been able to apply it in practice. Yes, it's always cool to have multiple visualizations of the same concept at different levels of abstraction, but in real-life there's always a trade-off between how much time you invest in visualizations and what you…
Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3099595
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 4
- Total points
- 1135
- Total comments
- 90
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-10-11 | Up and Down the Ladder of AbstractionFirst breakout · Best thread | macrael | 733 | 72 |
| 2014-02-24 | Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction | JoshTriplett | 2 | 0 |
| 2014-02-25 | Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction | JoshTriplett | 2 | 0 |
| 2016-11-23 | Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction | signa11 | 2 | 0 |
| 2017-05-20 | Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction (2011)Hall induction | semanser | 142 | 5 |
| 2018-09-22 | Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction (2011) | Tomte | 122 | 4 |
| 2020-05-28 | Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction | Anon84 | 1 | 0 |
| 2020-08-13 | Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction | doppp | 2 | 0 |
| 2020-08-18 | Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction | rrwright | 1 | 0 |
| 2020-12-17 | Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction (2011) | __henil | 1 | 1 |
| 2021-03-03 | Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction (2011) | Tomte | 2 | 0 |
| 2021-07-31 | Bret Victor – Ladder of Abstraction (2011) | wilbertliu | 2 | 0 |
| 2021-09-11 | Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction (2011)Latest 20+ point return | Tomte | 122 | 8 |
| 2023-05-03 | Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction | colinprince | 1 | 0 |