SYSE.52:11 - SoTA-Echoing

Kirsh’s 2010 analysis of external representations is a historical conceptual anchor for inspecting which operations a persistent, manipulable representation makes available. It supports examining the usable layout rather than only retained information; it supplies no claim that a worksheet and a model context have one cognitive mechanism.

The Complexity Trap v1, §3.1 compares masking older observations while retaining action history with recursive summarization that retains a recent tail. Its software-engineering setting supplies a useful comparison, not a universally best context window. Adopt the distinction between selection and summarization, then test the receiving loss that matters here, such as an unresolved effect erased from an older return.

A small exact state record remains a serious alternative. Reopen the representation when task needs, source access, context limits, tool interfaces or observed omission failures change.