Abstraction is expensive
Lack of abstraction is also expensive: try writing something large in assembly.I'd say that lack of a language / system of notions adequate to the subject area is expensive. The desire to describe things in a way that's efficient for a particular class of problems leads to invention of various frameworks. Say, Rails makes you hugely productive at solving a particular type of problems (see [Shopify]), though it's less than helpful if you try to apply it to unfitting problems (see [Twitter]).[Shopify]: https://tomaszs2.medium.com/how-shopify-handled-1-27-million... (Sorry for a Medium link)[Twitter]: https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/08/twitter_epic_traffic_...