[munificent]

Tell me about it. As someone who works in programming languages professionally but has no academic background in it, it's maddening how much stuff is impossible to learn because "you can't publish a paper on it because everyone knows it already".

[mncharity]

Years ago I dreamed that Lambda the Ultimate had added a wiki, so language implementation was quickening. Waking up... :(

[mncharity]

Similarly in the sciences, the gaps can be surprisingly large between insightful discussion among principals at conferences, and "you have to know the people involved to evaluate them" narrow papers, and misleading texts, and at great remove, introductory material.