Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 171 posts

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#81

Post by jakobnissen »

I think people will soon realize that code is a data structure, not text.

Like a hash map or an array, its text representation is merely a human-readable interface to it. I predict the capabilities of IDEs will expand, and to make their state persistent, they will begin to store IDE-specific files in your source code directory. Eventually this will morph into the source code itself being stored in binary format and opened/searched by editors.

The programming language Unity is pioneering in this domain, but they are too far ahead of their time. The transition to code-as-data will be gradual.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#82

Post by xchaotic »

WA wrote: post #14

2022? Probably focus on the big things of 2021. Not much will change within a year. 2032? Hard to say, but it is quite possible that software and the web will actually look quite similar to what we have now. I found the concepts in this presentation quite intriguing [1]. Some stuff like airplanes haven't changed THAT much in the last 50 years, because they are good enough for their purpose. [1]: https://idlewords.com…

airplanes haven't changed much because safety is paramount and every crash is big PR fiasco so planes have not changed much because the industry is heavily regulated and there are duopoly players in the commercial space (Boeing/Airbus). But I concur with some of your thesis...

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#83

Post by thecleaner »

RedBeetDeadpool wrote: post #79

Hyper IOTization. I'm coining the term. - pots that tell you when they are hot. - bikes that say their tires are flat. - weights that track how many reps you did. - shoes that tell you: stop landing on your heels so hard. - pillboxes that shove pills down your throat. - pillboxes that shove politics down your throat. - chargers that tell you their pronouns are he/him. - coffee mugs that tell you weather. - pants that…

> shoes that tell you: stop landing on your heels so hard.

This might happen quite quickly. Thing is how you walk and how much you abuse your legs can be a major source of problems like shot knees in the long run. And these things creep, they don't just happen quickly so you can't remedy it so fast.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#84

Post by null_shift »

kristov wrote: post #70

I am possibly alone in thinking the biggest thing to happen in computing in the 80s/90s was the spreadsheet. Having an immeasurable affect on the productivity of organizations large and small, to this day. So what does the 21st century version of the spreadsheet look like?

no/low code tools that are accessible/useable by the masses.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#85

Post by thecleaner »

thaufeki wrote: post #33
kennu wrote: post #15

Web3 will go through its current hype cycle peak (with lots of people both hyping and hating it), and in a few years we will see what actually comes of it. I predict we will find some interesting unforeseeable use cases for decentralized computing/currency, but it'll take some time.

I'm not sure that I like the term 'Web3', as it implies that everything will move in that direction, which I don't think will be the case. I just refer to it as the Decentralized Web. Centralization has many benefits over Decentralization and vice versa. Its a very healthy thing to happen though. I do think it has a place, and is a promising emerging market. Which is why I've been interested in learning development i…

Web3 means using UDP as the backbone protocol and with hole-punching it makes P2P interactions possible. Hence the whole decentralisation bit. Tbh ipv6 can also achieve the same goals but at the cost of de-anonymization since it's a unique marker.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#86

Post by Zababa »

majewsky wrote: post #56
cinntaile wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardware has gotten more power hungry over the years not less. As long as people are more expensive than energy/hardware, I don't see this changing anytime soon. Maybe we'll get better at utilizing our high performance hardware by offloading the computations more and more to the cloud but overall energy usage will likely keep going up. Growing economies and cheap, abundant energy go hand in hand.

> Hardware has gotten more power hungry over the years not less. Hardware has massively improved in the power/watt and computation/joule categories. The increased power consumption is because of rebound effect. If we really only used cellphones for telephone calls and SMS, we could build them to last for months on a single charge. Yet we have to charge them every day because they are built to do not just telephony, b…

> Yet we have to charge them every day because they are built to do not just telephony, but also maps, reservations, banking, 3D games, and so on and so forth.

While I agree with you here, I feel like people don't try to optimize an already working base. For example, I recently updated the clock app on my android phone. There is no difference in functionality in the new app, but it has the android 12 design. This time could have been spent optimizing the app in a way or another. I do the same thing on my phone as I did 5/6 years ago: read a lot online, sometimes listen to music, sometimes look at maps, sometimes use apps, telephony. My battery lasts longer these days, but not as much because my phone also has to show sweet animations and be able to run high-performance stuff (I made the error of buying a flagship phone).

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#87

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

axegon_ wrote: post #53
nicoburns wrote: post #21

I'm not sure if it will end up being the case, but I would like to hope that open firmware and/or hardware will become a big thing in the next decade. Open source software has been such a game changer, and it would be amazing if we could realise the same benefits in the embedded/hardware sphere.

I second this and for several major reasons: 1. Prices are down(yes, lower down your guns). I'm not talking about CPUs or GPUs but embedded products. It's absolutely mind blowing that you can get the computational power of a mid-90's computer with the size of a coin for just a few bucks. Same goes for sensors, transceivers, motors and communication modules. 2. 3D printing has come a long way, also dirt cheap and easi…

How cheap do you want PCBs to be? They're already at the point where shipping costs dominate the price. https://jlcpcb.com/

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#88

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

thecleaner wrote: post #83
RedBeetDeadpool wrote: post #79

Hyper IOTization. I'm coining the term. - pots that tell you when they are hot. - bikes that say their tires are flat. - weights that track how many reps you did. - shoes that tell you: stop landing on your heels so hard. - pillboxes that shove pills down your throat. - pillboxes that shove politics down your throat. - chargers that tell you their pronouns are he/him. - coffee mugs that tell you weather. - pants that…

> shoes that tell you: stop landing on your heels so hard. This might happen quite quickly. Thing is how you walk and how much you abuse your legs can be a major source of problems like shot knees in the long run. And these things creep, they don't just happen quickly so you can't remedy it so fast.

Already exists. I managed a project for a well-known company in the sneaker industry that sends gait & foot pressure data from the shoe to an app and they have been working on this for probably close to a decade at this point. I can only assume that they've decided that commercialization outside the niche of Olympic athletes isn't worthwhile.

And they are definitely not the only player since I recall writing some similar code for another organization in that field.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#89

Post by tjansen »

vzaliva wrote: post #61
tester756 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but is formal verification required/needed to solve latest security issues? I mean those related to: CPUs, NPM, External Libraries, parsers written in unsafe languages

In short: Yes. In many cases having solid formal foundation allows to fomulate high-level properties which would allow to catch even bugs like recent log4j. There is alreay a lot of work on formalization of ISA/CPU definitions which could allow to catch low-level bugs/expoloits.

"catch even bugs like recent log4j"

How could it help with that? JNDI lookups were a documented feature of log4j. An incredibly dangerous one, but it was intended to work like that.

Post reply on HN