The last geek who knew everything
I've just realised something; I probably could and should have realised it literally decades ago.
It has been said that Adam Young, who died in 1829 was "the last man who knew everything". Around that time, the exponential explosion in the sum of human knowledge eclipsed the capacity for any one person to know it all. No more polymaths.
As a parallel to that, for a few short years in the late nineties, I knew everything about the computers I used. I'd absorbed heaps of knowledge while hacking my way through my teens, then did a computer science degree, then learned more while I was out in industry.
I knew - roughly - how semiconductors worked.
I knew what every single gate did in my computer's CPU.
I'd worked with the people who wrote my OS's C compiler, and dabbled in its innards.
I had a complete understanding of all the operating system's capabilities and related APIs.
I'd read the RFC for every network protocol I used.
I knew how modems sent and received data over analogue phone lines.
I knew how a quadrature mouse, a keyboard, a CRT, a hard drive, worked.
I knew how Ethernet worked.
I knew everything.
Then it all started to slip away from me. Operating systems and applications became gigantic. CPUs became monstrously complex. Graphics started getting done by scary things like OpenGL, then transmitted digitally via interconnects rather more elaborate than SVGA. Hard drives started using preposterous tricks I couldn't pretend to understand in order to squeeze in more data. Optical mice arrived and worked by voodoo. Keyboards started being connected via USB. The Web became a maelstrom of protocols mutating as fast as venture capital could carry them. I've spent 25,000 hours programming C++, and I know how to use it inside out, but I no longer had more than a general idea what happens inside the compiler, even before clang came along and sprinkled additional magic on the situation. My data travels via gigabit Ethernet, wi-fi and DSL.
Now, the vast majority of what happens in my desktop PC is a mystery to me.
That's not a problem that can possibly go away. And it's also presumably how most people have always felt about their computers. I need to learn to cope with this…
Cross-posted from this Dreamwidth original. If you can, please comment there instead.
DW Comments: Read
or Add Your Own.
It has been said that Adam Young, who died in 1829 was "the last man who knew everything". Around that time, the exponential explosion in the sum of human knowledge eclipsed the capacity for any one person to know it all. No more polymaths.
As a parallel to that, for a few short years in the late nineties, I knew everything about the computers I used. I'd absorbed heaps of knowledge while hacking my way through my teens, then did a computer science degree, then learned more while I was out in industry.
I knew - roughly - how semiconductors worked.
I knew what every single gate did in my computer's CPU.
I'd worked with the people who wrote my OS's C compiler, and dabbled in its innards.
I had a complete understanding of all the operating system's capabilities and related APIs.
I'd read the RFC for every network protocol I used.
I knew how modems sent and received data over analogue phone lines.
I knew how a quadrature mouse, a keyboard, a CRT, a hard drive, worked.
I knew how Ethernet worked.
I knew everything.
Then it all started to slip away from me. Operating systems and applications became gigantic. CPUs became monstrously complex. Graphics started getting done by scary things like OpenGL, then transmitted digitally via interconnects rather more elaborate than SVGA. Hard drives started using preposterous tricks I couldn't pretend to understand in order to squeeze in more data. Optical mice arrived and worked by voodoo. Keyboards started being connected via USB. The Web became a maelstrom of protocols mutating as fast as venture capital could carry them. I've spent 25,000 hours programming C++, and I know how to use it inside out, but I no longer had more than a general idea what happens inside the compiler, even before clang came along and sprinkled additional magic on the situation. My data travels via gigabit Ethernet, wi-fi and DSL.
Now, the vast majority of what happens in my desktop PC is a mystery to me.
That's not a problem that can possibly go away. And it's also presumably how most people have always felt about their computers. I need to learn to cope with this…
Cross-posted from this Dreamwidth original. If you can, please comment there instead.
DW Comments: Read
or Add Your Own.