"And programming is hard enough; we should see our mission as making it easier." Programming is complicated enough, and we should see our mission as making it

"And programming is hard enough; we should see our mission as making it easier." Programming is complicated enough, and we should see our mission as making it simpler. That would benefit everyone, not just newcomers. I see the eventual harshness and gatekeeping in every forum (not just Usenet and SO) as the inevitable consequence of accidental complexity. We've got 173 layers between what we want to accomplish and what we have to type on on the keyboard today, and that naturally leads to ultra-specialization and Barton's "high priests". I don't think I can describe the modern web stack with a straight face. It's become its own parody of software development. I no longer think I understand how to stay secure on the modern internet, except by mindlessly following "best practices" I've been told. Complexity has a real cost for everyone. To change the background color on my C=64, you had to consult a memory map -- but there weren't dozens of other abstraction layers to think about, so even my parents weren't afraid to crack open the book and help. Abstraction is a necessary tool, but a lot of the layers we've got today are just plain bad, and exist mostly by historical accident. You either have to study the archaeology of all your software and hardware, or you have to memorize bizarre cargo cult rituals and recite them back without understanding why. The root cause can't be solved with a Q&A website, no matter how much you tweak the phrasing of the form fields.