>>When you take away the trappings of his framework the code is almost exactly the same as yours.
>
>So the code is only slightly more abstract than if you just wrote the code straight up.
>
>I still don't think that abstraction provides any real benefits to the developer of the code beyond some RAD capability that isn't exclusive to an application framework.

I think an application framework is the ultimate abstraction. Abstraction provides all the benefits to the programmer. Kevin has to program at the abstract level and not to a specific implementation, otherwise it will soon break and not just for him or his company but for all the hundreds or thousands of his users.

Thats where these people saying that a 3rd party framework will handcuff them are wrong. He has to provide an abstract class or an interface or a hook method. And the fact that he has hundreds or thousands of users is testimony to the fact that he has programmed for flexiblity.

I'm sure he's programmed himself into enough corners to know when he should be programming abstractly! Everytime he creates a new class his first thought is probably, "Now what if someone wants to do it another way?". And if he didn't, we complain and he usually fixes it if its a good idea.

There is nothing exclusive in his framework that you nor anybody else couldn't program as long as they had a background in design patterns, UML and X many years of experience programming frameworks.

Sorry Mike, this isn't directed at you. I'm just ranting. Its abstract. It has to be abstract otherwise it won't work.