Again, I reiterate, because this is important!
As I’ve mentioned earlier, all technology is part of a stack that has a top and a bottom: there are base technologies that are built off of, and there is a derived product technology as a result. And unfortunately, the way technology works is that there is always going to be duplicated work in this story of technological progress.
But, as I’ve also mentioned, not all duplicated work is effectively waste… just that most duplicated work is mostly waste. So, when exactly is the problem of duplicated work worse or better?
I will provide my personal judgement here.
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When two technologies perform the same task, but each expose an incompatible symbolic interface to achieve that task, the problem of duplicated work is one of the worst.
- Every derived technology needs to, in fact, “invent” a symbolic format, symbolic language, or symbolic interface upon which higher level technologies can build off of.
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By constrast, when the symbolic interface exposed by duplicate technologies is identical or otherwise completely backwards/forwards compatible, the duplicated works are among the best.
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When the base technologies are the same or very similar, and the derived technology is essentially the same, the problem of duplication is going to be one of the worse ones.
- When the base technologies are very different, and the derived technology is essentially the same, the duplication is going to be a more veritable goal. Especially, when the derived technology uses a plug-compatible symbolic interface with existing similar technologies, the duplicated work will be among the best.
So, the interesting conclusion that you may be drawn to is this: although it is acceptable for lower levels of technology to be radically different, the higher levels of technology better have good compatibility, and the highest levels of technology essentially cannot be changed: compatible interfaces must continue to be used.