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I think the completely comprehensible system has always been an illusion. There's always some cutoff level below which people don't understand (or don't care to
by wwalker3 17y ago
I think the completely comprehensible system has always been an illusion. There's always some cutoff level below which people don't understand (or don't care to understand) the system they're working in.
The old Apple 2 hackers had a great understanding of assembly, but that's because it was the top level of the system to them, the stuff they worked with daily. I doubt most of them understood the PLA that decoded the instructions, or the behavior of the dynamic NMOS logic inside the 6502.
The 6502 instruction set was essentially the API of the processor, and it wasn't above reproach any more than current software APIs are. Many people wished for different addressing modes or additional instructions to simplify common coding tasks.
- limmeau 17y agoHowever, the relation between how much is there to know (increasing) and how much fits in a head (constant) is growing, which is sad, and whether it has ever been 1 seems rather unimportant to me.
- neilc 17y agoThe fact that the ratio continues to grow seems like a fundamental property of technology -- personally I don't find it sad. In exchange for more powerful tools, you inevitably need to accept more levels of abstraction and more underlying complexity.
- wwalker3 17y agoThe ratio of things we know to things we don't know is essentially zero. Thankfully that doesn't preclude us from dreaming big and accomplishing great things.