Out-of-order execution and caches are once again emerging fields, unfortunately.
Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
31–40 of 183 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#32Not so much science in this list, more personal and practical view:
As a web developer: WebAssembly
As a DevOp: Kubernetes
As a backend engineer: headless (CMS) API systems like Strapi or Wagtail
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#33Almost all of the answers on this list are not fields that are "emerging" but fields that "have already emerged". The ideal emerging field is one that's so obscure we haven't heard of it yet, but so important that we will. If there are widely disseminated books on Amazon about your field, it's not emerging. If there are hundreds of professionals cranking out papers about your field, it's also not emerging. Emerging f…
Perhaps I should have asked for the most obscure :) I wonder how many truly emerging fields still exist within computer science. I feel that resiros [1] may be correct in suggesting applications in other areas of science are most interesting / obscure (in the context of that discipline, at least).
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#34There are currently huge opportunities in applied computing for people who can break out of the status quo. There has never been such a big gap between what technology can do and what technology culture can't. Of course it isn't easy. As there also never been easier to waste time in technology.
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#35direct acyclic graphs for blockchain use. homomorphic cryptography.
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#36Blockchain, though no one on hn really understands it. :D
It's an unfortunate characteristic of many in the cryptocurrency community, that they think anyone who doesn't support crypto simply doesn't understand it. And by extension, as soon as they do understand it they will become supporters.
No. There are those who do understand blockchain and still don't support it. A great example is professor Jorge Stolfi. He is one of the more prominent detractors, and yet he routinely displays a very thorough understanding of the technology.
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#37Just as an angle to answering the question (I don't have answers of my own).... What was the most interesting CS field(s) in 2008, 98, 88, etc?
88 (taking a stab here as I was pretty young):
DTP
OO
RISC CPUs
'graphics' (as in render farms)
98:
Linux, Apache, Mozilla, OSS in general
Perceptual audio compression : MP3 (layer3.org, MP3 vs TwinVQ, codecs created during the period before Fraunhofer announced the source code it uploaded to ISO without a license and that people had been working on for free, in fact had a license and everyone owed them 10 grand).
2008:
Cloud
mobile (location in particular). Think Foursquare vs Gowalla vs Burbn, Grindr, other early mobile location-aware apps. App stores for popularised by Apple that same year.
AJAX, Rails
blogging.
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#38Out-of-order execution and caches are once again emerging fields, unfortunately.
Emerging as in not leaking through side channels emerging?
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#39AI, machine learning, and neural networks are, of courwe, booming, but I consider them to be hyped. I consider type theory and formal verification to be more promising (but more academic). Distributed systems and everything having to do with parallel and/or high-performance systems is a good midway between what the industry likes and what's interesting from an academic point of view.
Haha. Formal verification has been around for 40/50 years and we can't say it is a wide success from a industrial point of view. It has some achievements in terms of results/methods and projects checked, but on a daily basis, pretty much no one uses it. We are ages away of having every programmer understanding formal verification and having all programs verified/proved. Type theory is in a similar situation. Many iss…
Rust looks like a step towards practical formal verification just because of its design philosophy. I think what we're doing is making engineering languages more and more verifiable as research languages become more and more expressive. Eventually they'll meet in the middle and we'll have formal verification in "real life."