I was around for that era (I may have made an involuntary noise when Zeldman once posted something nice about a thing I made), but being averse to "abstraction in general" is a completely alien concept to me as a software developer.
replyYes, but I'm in so many words stating that that particular era of web dev was notorious for the discussion of "is this software engineering or not".
replyIt's just such a different concept/vibe/whatever compared to modern frontend development. Brad Frost is another notable person in this overall space who's written about the changes in the field over the years.