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Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

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Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#211

Post by gwbas1c »

I thought a different major OS would supplant Windows. It kind-of came true with more Android devices in use than Windows; but by now I thought Windows would be a minority player and we'd have a bigger variety of different desktop OSes.

I also thought IDEs would be in 3D, with better visualizations of code running in parallel.

And, I didn't expect web applications to be the norm for most people. I thought we'd have a better "standard" cross-platform application development approach.

One thing that doesn't surprise me are application stores. After seeing how 90s applications used to take over your computer and wedge themselves everywhere, I expected that OS vendors would lock things down a bit more tightly.

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#212

Post by drdeadringer »

manmal wrote: post #198

I expected VR, or at least 3D spaces, to become a de facto way of navigating the internet. In hindsight that would be horrible of course, as it would be slower, resource-hungry, and overwhelming to deal with for 10h every day.

> or at least 3D spaces

In the early 2000s I remember UBUBU which basically was a customizable 3D solar system cover for your desktop + internet links. I found it pretty cool, the possibility of rose-coloured glasses aside.

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#213

Post by k__ »

Svperstar wrote: post #177

I was told when I majored in CS in year 2000 that "in 20 years Java will be the only language" and also "it will impossible for an American to get a job as they will be hiring all of their programmers from India"

Java had a good run.

But when I want to university to study CS in 2007 it was just a marginalia.

Some profs would use it for examples, but until Android gave it a second spring in 2010, we mostly used C/C++ and PHP.

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#214

Post by pfarrell »

I expect the act of programming will change quite a bit over the next 10-15 years. We will incorporate machine learning algorithms more easily in many workflows, so part of your work will be training models to produce black box functions that you’ll call to get answers to complicated questions.

Obviously, this happens now, but I think it will become more pervasive and many more programmers will find the pattern incorporated into their daily work stream. I see the act of programming becoming the human guiding the computer to write the programs and the human validates it.

I could be way off. I’d have bet anything in ‘94 that Beck would be a one hit wonder.

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#215

Post by rjsw »

mgkimsal wrote: post #187
mcv wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expected RISC to overtake CISC much sooner than it did. I expected IPv6 to be adopted quickly. I expected 6GB to be more storage than I could ever fill. I expected Windows to be quickly dismissed and Unix to become the standard. I expected to have a screen built into my glasses by now.

I remember talking in mid 99 about ipv6, while I was at a web company. Immediately on seeing it I said "this is crazy, and isn't going to take off". "Why not?" I got from some of the network folks there. My response then is mostly as it is now - it's just too confusing to read and write. The UIs - even at the time - telling people to put in a dotted quad - were... manageable. 4 is an easy number to understand. Number…

I have had native IPv6 at home for over 10 years.

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#217

Post by tasogare »

k__ wrote: post #208
nasir wrote: post #165

When I was choosing my university major, everybody was telling me don't choose computer science. The job market is saturated and everybody is a software engineer, choose electronics. I chose CS. Fast-forward today, most of the people I know who were in electronic have switched to software.

In high school (2003) my class mates said, I shouldn't become a dev. Everything is already created. They would download movies, music, and games with BitTorrent and chat with ICQ and IRC. What else is there to create? I should go into administration, because that's where the big money is.

In a way they were right. Movie and music have better definition, games better graphics but on a functional level everything we do today (web browsing, text messaging, video call, email, online shopping) already existed 15 years ago. There is more bloat (JS and Electron), more confusing UI design, more privacy invasive software now and but for the end user nothing really changed.

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#219

Post by jeswin »

I expect the future of tech (especially data) to be more decentralized. Not necessarily because of privacy, but because there are several opportunities to use the staggering amount of power available in mobile devices. Someone will figure out a killer app or platform, and open the flood gates.

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#220

Post by coldpie »

jghn wrote: post #201
nasir wrote: post #165

When I was choosing my university major, everybody was telling me don't choose computer science. The job market is saturated and everybody is a software engineer, choose electronics. I chose CS. Fast-forward today, most of the people I know who were in electronic have switched to software.

Anecdote from a mid-90s grad. I found that in the late 90s/early aughts my friends with the coolest jobs had degrees in something computational but not CS. Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics. They all had to learn to code in school and had background domain knowledge in some specialty. In contrast myself and my CS friends had, well, we had knowledge of Turing machines with infinite tapes. As the…

> In contrast myself and my CS friends had, well, we had knowledge of Turing machines with infinite tapes.

Yeah. Going to school for Computer Science is probably the biggest regret in my life. I could have spent that time & money learning something useful/interesting instead, or better yet, not waste my time in University at all.

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