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Think of it like Rust eventually supplanting C++ once the ecosystem and libraries are complete enough for people to make the change. The cognitive burden reduc

Think of it like Rust eventually supplanting C++ once the ecosystem and libraries are complete enough for people to make the change. The cognitive burden reduces via the new foundations not requiring deep understanding of the old ones to be able to make new steps forward.

tsimionescu 4y ago
This is not a good example, as Rust does not build on C++, it simply replaces it as the foundation. Of course, the development of Rust is built upon lessons learned from C++. But there is no universal law that says that the foundations of a field must be simple enough for one human to understand them in 70 years. It may well be that the simplest possible statement of a field of knowledge is still too complex for a single human to understand it in a normal life-span (not to mention that our capacity for storing information is limited - you can't actually continually learn new things for 70 years without forgetting much of what you learned initially). Even today, you could spend literally your entire life trying to learn everything we know about the human body and you would almost certainly die before having learned everything. Now, fortunately, there is plenty of real work, both as a doctor and as a researcher, that can be done by focusing on just one aspect of the body (say, the circulatory system) and having only relatively shallow knowledge about the rest. Still, there is the possibility already that a mind that could build on all of the deep knowledge we have could come up with new ideas in medicine and biotech that we are unable to because of this silo-ing.
- snovv_crash 4y ago
  > This is not a good example, as Rust does not build on C++, it simply replaces it as the foundation. No, that's exactly the point. You can thereby drop the cognitive load of C++ and build greenfield on the Rust foundations.

tsimionescu 4y ago

This is not a good example, as Rust does not build on C++, it simply replaces it as the foundation. Of course, the development of Rust is built upon lessons learned from C++. But there is no universal law that says that the foundations of a field must be simple enough for one human to understand them in 70 years. It may well be that the simplest possible statement of a field of knowledge is still too complex for a single human to understand it in a normal life-span (not to mention that our capacity for storing information is limited - you can't actually continually learn new things for 70 years without forgetting much of what you learned initially). Even today, you could spend literally your entire life trying to learn everything we know about the human body and you would almost certainly die before having learned everything. Now, fortunately, there is plenty of real work, both as a doctor and as a researcher, that can be done by focusing on just one aspect of the body (say, the circulatory system) and having only relatively shallow knowledge about the rest. Still, there is the possibility already that a mind that could build on all of the deep knowledge we have could come up with new ideas in medicine and biotech that we are unable to because of this silo-ing.

snovv_crash 4y ago
> This is not a good example, as Rust does not build on C++, it simply replaces it as the foundation. No, that's exactly the point. You can thereby drop the cognitive load of C++ and build greenfield on the Rust foundations.