gistfile1.txt

People develop abstractions by generalizing from concrete examples.
Every attempt to determine the correct abstraction on paper without
actually developing a running system is doomed to failure. No one
is that smart. A framework is a resuable design, so you develop it by
looking at the things it is supposed to be a design of. The more examples
you look at, the more general your framework will be.

  -- Ralph Johnson & Don Roberts, Patterns for Evolving Frameworks