It's less that it's the best way to approach a problem, but that it optimizes for a different goal. Building on existing knowledge is how you find the local ma

It's less that it's the best way to approach a problem, but that it optimizes for a different goal. Building on existing knowledge is how you find the local maxima for a problem by moving along the slop you have. Starting from scratch is how you find different slopes, which may lead to higher local maximas. Of course, if you happen to be on a slope that leads to the global maxima, starting from scratch is far less effective. We don't really know where we are usually, so there's a trade-off. There was a good article posted to HN years ago that covered this and used rocketry as one of the examples, but I don't recall what it was. The author was well known, IIRC.