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Ask HN: What is the most exciting development in your field right now?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the most exciting development in your field right now?

#251

Post by pitaj »

uranian wrote: post #187

Most annoying is the need to write in ES6/Babel today, and all these js hipsters that really believe this is the future of web development. I totally hate Babel with it's dozens of Webpack patches/plugins to make it work. Oh, and don't forget your (Airbnb style) linter if you want to be politically correct. No one needs Babel to write stellar code IMHO. Unfortunately it is not about the quality of the code you write,…

Let's establish a couple things right off the start:

1. You can write great applications without the latest language features 2. The latest language features do make development easier

Babel is necessary for #2 if you don't have control over the browser which your users use to access your site. If you don't want to transpile, don't. It's as simple as that. However, the future of JS is the future of web development, that is indisputable. Using Babel allows you to stay closer to the future and/or use these great new language features.

You also brought up TypeScript.

3. Types make development much easier

TypeScript is a combination of types and a transpiler for the ability to use the latest ES features. Types are great, providing:

- Better self-documenting code - More safety - IDE interop to provide completion, as seen in VS Code

> note: I expect serious down votes as opposing Babel is almost a serious crime nowadays and proves my unlimited stupidity.

From the HN Guidelines: "Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or proclaim that you expect to get downvoted."

> Maybe soon I will be forced to write in MS Typescript if I want to be taken seriously.

Many would say that someone should be forced to write in a typed language in general in order to be taken seriously.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most exciting development in your field right now?

#252

Post by kejaed »

anfractuosity wrote: post #228
kejaed wrote: post #223

Aerospace Engineer - Enhanced Flight Vision Systems TLDR: Fancy fused infrared (LWIR/SWIR) and visible spectrum camera systems may 'soon' be on a passenger airliner near you. Using infrared cameras to see through fog/haze to land aircraft has been happening for a while now, but only on biz jets or on FedEx aircraft with a waiver. The FAA has gained enough confidence in the systems that they have just opened up the ru…

That sounds very interesting! Say with a car that has a heads up display for night vision, if it had an SWIR sensor and IR lights, can that cut through fog too? Or is it the LWIR that is able to do that?

SWIR sensors are there for hot burning lights. LWIR (aka thermal) sees things that are every day temperatures. Both wavelengths have better transmittance through fog than visible light so we say those sensors can 'see through' fog. The physics comes down to the wavelength of the light vs the size of the molecules of the medium the light is trying to get through [1].

Another fun part is that fog at one airport can be different than fog at another, so while the weather conditions at both locations may say visibility is "Runway Visible Range (RVR) 1000ft", that is for a pilots eyes, and the same camera may work just fine at one location and not at all at the other.

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Atmosphe...

Re: Ask HN: What is the most exciting development in your field right now?

#253

Post by metaobject »

aabajian wrote: post #110

I'm entering radiology residency, and I'm very pro-automation / machine learning. There's a contentious debate in the field about whether radiologists will be replaced: https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/will-ai-replace-rad... HackerNews is very developer-focused. If you guys saw what a radiologist does on a 9-5 basis you'd be amazed it hasn't already been automated. Sitting behind a computer, looking at images…

About 5 years ago while observing an echcardiogram I remarked to the radiologist that this was something that could be automated eventually. I don't think she took too kindly to my remark. She was measuring the distance between various structures etc. and I recall thinking about how to implement something to reproduce what she as doing.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most exciting development in your field right now?

#254

Post by rch »

ced wrote: post #81
abhishivsaxena wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Do you know anything about agent modelling? Any ideas how if/it ties to it?

What's agent modelling?

Here's an agent modeling framework I remember from the early 2000s:

http://jade.tilab.com/

I'm curious to know if it's related to the current discussion.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most exciting development in your field right now?

#255

Post by sindoc »

bitshaker wrote: post #177

My field is hypnosis, or more generally, "changework" which is jargon, but essentially hacking the psychology of clients to get desired outcomes. There's been a renaissance of study in placebo effects, meditation, and general frameworks for how people change belief for therapeutic purposes or otherwise, but to me, that's been going on for a long time and is more about acceptance than being a new development. One of t…

Sounds interesting. Would you care to share any references?

Re: Ask HN: What is the most exciting development in your field right now?

#256

Post by wott »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #149
onion2k wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect that junior developer in software field should be able to program only. That is very often the case. It needs to change. Testing is a part of software development, and anyone who writes software should be aware of it. I feel the same way about documentation. And requirements. You can't write good software without knowledge of the processes that surround development. It isn't enough just to be able to write g…

Maybe. Personally, I've come to think that you need the right tool for the right job. If you spend more time writing / running tests that you would fixing the bugs they find, you may be doing it wrong. If you're writing documentation no one will read, you may be doing it wrong. They clearly do have a place though. As for maintaining a set of requirements... I appreciate there must be some environments where what is r…

> If you spend more time writing / running tests that you would fixing the bugs they find, you may be doing it wrong.

Why should those 2 activities be compared? They do not compare: writing/running tests is about discovering the bug, not fixing it. You still need to fix it after you have done your testing activity.

The time spent writing/running tests should better be compared to the time spent in bug discovery without tests, i.e. how much you value the fact that your users are going to undergo bugs, what the consequences of the users hitting bugs are, what the process to report them is, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most exciting development in your field right now?

#257

Post by UweSchmidt »

RileyKyeden wrote: post #204
kekimchi wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wwould love to get started, I've been looking for a new hobby and thought that is perfect. How should I start? :)

Reaper: http://www.reaper.fm/ (good tutorials: http://reaperblog.net/ ) Good synths: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/firebird-by-tone2-audiosoft... https://www.kvraudio.com/product/synth1-by-ichiro-toda Good all-purpose instrument: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/orion-sound-module-by-sampl... Good orchestral instruments: http://vis.versilstudios.net/vsco-community.html A helpful article I wrote with links and basi…

You're describing the DAW and plugins, but wouldn't you need a midi keyboard, a groovebox or a drum computer, to actually make those beats?

https://www.thomann.de/gb/roland_tr_8.htm

Re: Ask HN: What is the most exciting development in your field right now?

#258

Post by te »

bitshaker wrote: post #177

My field is hypnosis, or more generally, "changework" which is jargon, but essentially hacking the psychology of clients to get desired outcomes. There's been a renaissance of study in placebo effects, meditation, and general frameworks for how people change belief for therapeutic purposes or otherwise, but to me, that's been going on for a long time and is more about acceptance than being a new development. One of t…

Your interesting comment made me think of Oblique Strategies cards, which "can help someone solve an issue without actually knowing the details".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies

Re: Ask HN: What is the most exciting development in your field right now?

#259

Post by jstimpfle »

dandare wrote: post #244
jstimpfle wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fad? Don't you see a problem with many of today's websites? Both from a developer's and a user's perspective.

B specific. Answer the question above, name the problem you have on mind and tell us how is brutalism solving that problem.

Did not downvote. Let's take twitter as a well known and particularly bad example.

For a brutalist example, let's take HN. It works. Plus, I'm sure the code is quite simple.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most exciting development in your field right now?

#260

Post by samuelbrin »

"field" would be a strong word as it's more of a diy hobby thing, but in the world of FPV drones I'm excited for flight controllers with integrated 4-in-1 ESCs (electronic speed controllers). Wouldn't say it changed the game but makes it so much easier to build these quadcopter and opens up new possibilities.
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