I have not noticed any added complexity during the last years or even changes that force me to relearn certain things. I even feel like VS Code becomes better and better.
How is it that nobody seems to know that every major editor has either vim mode or a vim plugin. I love vim, but I almost never use it directly. I usually use JetBrains IDE with vim plugin. Best of both worlds.
I disagree that biology, or by proxy any other science, should be written in such a way that a non-expert in the field should understand everything without consulting wikipedia or any other source. Studying a natural sciences includes learning a certain vocabulary and grammar. The reason for this is simple. We agree on certain definitions, words and sentences, to minimise the possibility of ambiguities and misconceptions. This is a very important aspect of any science.
In the same sense, abstracting things is important. Abstraction gives us the opportunity to apply the results from one seemingly foreign field to another.
It is not the task of science to create enthusiasm for the result for people outside the field in technical articles or textbooks as this post tries to endorse.
The excitement for a certain topic should be given by the teachers and, to be honest, this was also always the case in my experience, but I might have been very lucky.
Furthermore, the vast generalisation “Instead, we’re told that if you ever find yourself wanting the area of a triangle, here’s the procedure” couldn't be further from what I've experienced. I’ve never been given a “procedure” in math without being taught why and how it works.
I had the opposite experience. My teacher took extra care to explain to us why and how certain things worked in math. The reason I loved math so much, and still do, is because I never had to memorize anything. I just had to understand how it worked. In biology, however, it was very different. I had to memorize facts instead of understanding them.
