// engineering artifacts as magic black boxes ... //. Alas, that ship has sailed a long, long, time ago. As far as the average programmer goes, CPUs have been black boxes since before they were born.
There are just too many people adding too much value to keep up with everybody. Programming is changing radically (as it does every 10 years or so anyways) and I'm actually impressed that Sussman has the vision and courage to move on.
Actually, I'm not at all convinced that a lot of value is being added. Yes, there is a lot of change, but it's far from clear how much of that change represents actual progress. Instead, you get a lot of latest-and-greatest which, upon sober reflection turns out to be bullshit, to be replaced by another round of latest-and-greatest. Lather, rinse, repeat, in a cycle that takes about 5 years or so. CORBA. UML. Agile. OO. And a lot of the churn is because too few people actually understand the fundamentals, and so very few people recognize the bullshit for what it is until it has consumed vast amounts of resources.
There are just too many people adding too much value to keep up with everybody. Programming is changing radically (as it does every 10 years or so anyways) and I'm actually impressed that Sussman has the vision and courage to move on.