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Keeping an eye on cognitive budget is how Rust was done, and I think it's entirely appropriate. A language is a brain-computer interface, and if the brain part doesn't interface well, the project fails. (Also note: we _tried_ 1st class modules and _our_ brains couldn't do it.)
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((Today, of course, I would try again: more people have worked both on the tech itself and on making it accessible in the meantime. I'm hopeful modular implicits or something 1MLish works out, too.))
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(((By "accessible" here I mean accessibility to the implementors. If you're doing research tech transfer, as we were, it's often the case that the implementors -- dumb old systems hackers -- aren't as good at a thing as academia. Can't implement something we don't understand.)))
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