211–220 of 462 posts
IsaacL nailed it the best https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1027093 And surprisingly the WoW one is the most off :D
Curious if the "wisdom of crowds" works with these future predictions or if only a few were on target.
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> - As Moore's Law marches on, dynamic languages that are even slower than Ruby are likely to catch on. They may be to Ruby what Ruby is to Java, trading even more programmer time for CPU time. Interesting how plausible this one is, yet turned out to be terribly wrong: the newer hyped languages that got some uptake were largely compiled ones like Swift, Rust, Kotlin, and Dart.
I mean, JavaScript and Python have definitely become much more popular for many more things than they were in 2010. I doubt Swift replaced much besides other compiled languages, and Kotlin just compiles to Java anyway. Dart's VM idea was dropped so its small usage is largely compiling to JS still. I would say that the overall idea of performance being traded for programmer time is definitely happening despite the eme…
In some sense Rust is in that same vain - reducing certain errors and the need for tools like Coverity, which in turn makes programmers more efficient.
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> - The next big thing will be something totally unknown and unpredictable now, as user-generated content and social networking were in 1999. However, when it does appear, various 'experts' on it will spring from nowhere to lecture us all about it. It will still be really cool, though. I think this basically describes AI.
No, definitely Bitcoin
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> - As Moore's Law marches on, dynamic languages that are even slower than Ruby are likely to catch on. They may be to Ruby what Ruby is to Java, trading even more programmer time for CPU time. Interesting how plausible this one is, yet turned out to be terribly wrong: the newer hyped languages that got some uptake were largely compiled ones like Swift, Rust, Kotlin, and Dart.
One thing that always really bugged me about the "the language will figure it out" philosophy is the complete disregard towards carbon footprint. Like yeah, you can make an interpreted dynamic language that's pretty neat, but you can also make something like go, swift, or Julia that jits and also captures 90% of that ease of use while significantly reducing your hosting costs/energy consumption. Going forward I think…
In overall total effort needed to make something robust, something like rust will beat something like ruby, because the dynamic language-ists compensate via a larger test suite.
IsaacL nailed it the best https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1027093 And surprisingly the WoW one is the most off :D
Turns out the “killer enterprise web application” was YouTube :)
> Internecine fighting erupts amongst the software clans over whether certain symbols are separating or terminating and whether or not the name of the god of modification is spelled with two letters or five. The dehumanized masses turn on the dithering software clans and their IT crowd supporters, demanding to have their souls restored from failed exchange, facebook, gmail, and twitter servers. A small nomadic clan clad in denim and mock turtlenecks seeks the legendary Cupertino Stone in the wasteland of New Gorgoroth (mostly between the 85 and the 280), but finds only the unpublished "Objectivist-C Manifesto" and shiny discs inscribed "Dylan DR1".
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> - The next big thing will be something totally unknown and unpredictable now, as user-generated content and social networking were in 1999. However, when it does appear, various 'experts' on it will spring from nowhere to lecture us all about it. It will still be really cool, though. I think this basically describes AI.
AI wasn't totally unknown: basically every coastal university during the 1970s and 1980s were filled with people working on AI, and it didn't die off, it just became embarrassing to work on.
What changed in tech from 2010 to 2020? My take below.
Hardware:
Phones got way better and changed the face of modern human life. 3D TVs fizzled. VR has fizzled so far. AR fizzled. CPUs improved, but more slowly. HDDs improved, but more slowly. SSDs got cheap. Displays got way cheaper. Cars got better infotainment systems and other features, but never drove themselves. Wireless power didn't happen. Mesh networks didn't happen. Ultra cheap RFID didn't happen. Robots didn't happen. Telerobots didn't happen. T Dynamic pricing didn't really happen. Drone delivery didn't happen. Flexible electronics didn't happen. Nanotechnology didn't really happen. Graphene didn't happen. Ubiquitious computing didn't happen. Non-silicon based solar didn't happen. Silicon solar costs plummeted and installations went gangbusters. Wearable electronics didn't happen, except for smart watches. eReaders grew. FPGAs never took off. Chips are still mostly silicon. The top CPU makers are still Intel and AMD. The top GPU makers are still NVIDIA and AMD. The top video game console makers are still Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft. Home internet remained mostly cable, not fiber. Computers remained x86, phones remained ARM.
Software:
The dominant search engine is still Google. The dominant computer operating systems are still Windows and Mac OS. The dominant phone operating systems are still Android and iOS. The top video streaming site is still YouTube. The top map site is still Google Maps. The dominant office software is still Microsoft Office. The dominant social network is still Facebook. The top online retailer is still Amazon. The top cloud provider is still AWS. Internet Explorer died, and Chrome grew in share. Websites are lot better and slicker. Phone apps got way, way better. Cryptocurrencies didn't take off. MMOs didn't take off. Web anonymization didn't happen. Web identity didn't happen. Malware still exists. Spam still exists. Lag still exists. Functional programming didn't take off. Telepresence didn't take off. Remote work didn't take off. Mass outsourcing of software jobs didn't happen. Linux didn't take off. Prediction markets didn't happen. Video calls didn't really take off, but they happen. Most of what was growing in 2010 continued to grow, most of what was shrinking in 2010 continued to shrink.
What else happened? What narratives do you construct?
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> still has to pay Apple a reported $8 billion a year to be the default search engine for iOS. That is not the way to think about it - Imagine if Android didn't exist or faltered like Symbian, RIM, Windows Mobile etc. Google would have been paying way more than 8 billion. Android is definitely worth more than the money accounted towards it.
Not really. The Android market is really not worth that much. Statistically it’s made up of consumers who aren’t willing to spend that much compared to iOS owners. The high end non Chinese Android market is minuscule. They just aren’t as attractive as iOS users to advertisers.