Retire This Idea: Scientific Knowledge Structured as “Literature”
I what is missing from the article is an understanding of the incentives of academics. Quite often putting a piece of research "to bed" is the goal. Why? Because any good academic has a long list of things they want to get to.<p>Very few people want to get mired in the (inevitable) problems that arise in a paper for eternity. This is why there are review papers that summarize the state of the knowledge at a given point. These articles are useful summaries of what came before and what (at least appear to be) dead ends were found.<p>Maybe I'm missing some point with the author's article. But getting units of production out and finished (i.e. papers) is a useful process. I'm not sure what would be gained by keeping documents editable forever. Scientific literature is not code.