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Ask HN: What are the new ideas of the last 10 (or 5) years?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the new ideas of the last 10 (or 5) years?

#21

Post by stefano »

halo wrote: post #7
stefano wrote: post #2

Different languages hosted on the same VM. Ten years ago if you said JVM the only language to come to mind was Java. Now it's common to think of Clojure, Scala, JRuby, Rhino, etc. too.

It's not really a new idea, though. IBM developed NetRexx, a version of Rexx which compiles down to Java, in the mid-90s, for example. Kawa, a version of Scheme for the JVM, dates back to 1996 or so.

I agree. It wasn't new, but back then it was an exception, something really different from the norm. Now it's a more common thing. Now it's taken for granted that different languages can target the same VM and interoparate without going down to C.

Re: Ask HN: What are the new ideas of the last 10 (or 5) years?

#22

Post by 10ren »

I like 15 years, because that's 10 doublings by Moore's Law... 1024.

What becomes trivial with an iPhone that's 1,000 times faster?

If instead of Crysis fps of 20, you have 20,000. If instead of 2GB RAM, you had 2TB RAM; instead of 1TB HDD, 1PB. Instead of 2 MB/sec broadband, 2 GB/sec. That's just the standard, average device - not high end.

Of course, these might be disrupted by something less powerful but more convenient. One trend is HDD being disrupted by SSD, and by the cloud.

Flat-screens probably will be disrupted by 3D/hemispherical/projectors/e-ink screens.

Re: Ask HN: What are the new ideas of the last 10 (or 5) years?

#23

Post by tgdavies »

SwellJoe wrote: post #6
stefano wrote: post #2

Different languages hosted on the same VM. Ten years ago if you said JVM the only language to come to mind was Java. Now it's common to think of Clojure, Scala, JRuby, Rhino, etc. too.

And JavaScript will be the most popular language, by far, for most types of applications.

Or will Javascript just be the machine language of the internet, with software written in more expressive languages such as Java via GWT?

Re: Ask HN: What are the new ideas of the last 10 (or 5) years?

#25

Post by didip »

"different mode of revenue for web software"

Ads was and is obvious now, but there's a limit to how much ads budget the world have.

A number of startups are now experimenting with various freemium or one time fee or granular pay-as-you-use.

I'm expecting this trend to go up. And maybe there will be companies that make some of these payment plans automated.

Re: Ask HN: What are the new ideas of the last 10 (or 5) years?

#26

Post by fnid »

rodrigo wrote: post #24
ianbishop wrote: post #18

I truly feel that 3D printers will change the way we live. Maybe not in the next 5-10 years though.

How? What could we be doing different if we have them? Not rethorical, please share your opinion.

rapidly innovating physical products. fixing our own physical devices. 3d printers are to the physical world what 3gl languages are to software, or maybe assembly, or maybe machine language over punch cards.

Re: Ask HN: What are the new ideas of the last 10 (or 5) years?

#27

Post by BobCat »

fnid wrote: post #26
rodrigo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? What could we be doing different if we have them? Not rethorical, please share your opinion.

rapidly innovating physical products. fixing our own physical devices. 3d printers are to the physical world what 3gl languages are to software, or maybe assembly, or maybe machine language over punch cards.

The time you waste instructing the 3d printer to recreate your broken widget is better spent carving it out with the methods at hand.

That little steel thingy that wore out I can drill, file and bend by hand faster than you can CAD/CAM it up. You'll beat me if you're making many of something. But your home shop 3d printer still won't print steel.

Re: Ask HN: What are the new ideas of the last 10 (or 5) years?

#28

Post by ianbishop »

BobCat wrote: post #27
fnid wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

rapidly innovating physical products. fixing our own physical devices. 3d printers are to the physical world what 3gl languages are to software, or maybe assembly, or maybe machine language over punch cards.

The time you waste instructing the 3d printer to recreate your broken widget is better spent carving it out with the methods at hand. That little steel thingy that wore out I can drill, file and bend by hand faster than you can CAD/CAM it up. You'll beat me if you're making many of something. But your home shop 3d printer still won't print steel.

You raise a good point - but consider:

* It is very possible that 3D printers may be able to craft some sort of metal in the future.

* You will have massive CAD sharing websites if 3D Printers were to ever become a home standard. You would be able to simply grab and print anything you need - quickly.

Your comment overlooks the fact that most people cannot drill, file or bend by hand.

The unfortunate reality is that most of us are not machinists. Much like how most of us cannot compute large mathematical equations. For this, we created a tool to make it so everyone could do. The result has grown far from that simple goal.

Re: Ask HN: What are the new ideas of the last 10 (or 5) years?

#30

Post by IsaacL »

eru wrote: post #14
SwellJoe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And JavaScript will be the most popular language, by far, for most types of applications.

Excel is a close contender. It's still the world's most popular programming language. It incorporates a zeroth order functional language (the spreadsheet).

Off-topic, but what's a zeroth order functional language? What are the other orders (something reqiring lambdas, closures, etc)? Google and Wikipedia didn't help.
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