Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

Post by snvzz » Sat, May 25, 2019, 10:45 PM UTC

ddingus wrote: post #35

craigsmansion wrote: post #23

I miss 90s complexity! Sparc, MIPS, and Alpha were still alive. Assembly was a thing. Mobile telephones for mortals were a marvel and technological breakthrough that could let you communicate everywhere. 3D graphics could run in software, and Abrash' Black Book was a black book, and even more, wizards had managed to capture things in hardware for the PC with some sort of voodoo. Now we have 1.5 dominant boring archit…

I think we are headed back that direction. Custom hardware is coming again. It's coming because we've hit walls on sequential compute. Multi-core parallel and concurrent models are building nicely, but software lags behind, and those problems are hard. Some problems do not benefit from either of those things too. Enter custom silicon. The combination of software and well realized custom silicon to enhance performance…

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, May 25, 2019, 10:48 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #28

EliRivers wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people not being able to contact me 24/7 You can still have that! I have it. Literally cannot remember the last time I answered the phone :)

Yeah, that's at least partially a social problem or how you relate to people and tech, not a tech problem per se. You have to manage your relationships to both people and tech.

Post by rootusrootus » Sat, May 25, 2019, 10:51 PM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #45

smacktoward wrote: post #8

Let me answer your question with another question. How old are you? Because I'm in my 40s, which means I was in my 20s during the 1990s. And from my perspective, it was not a notably simpler time back then than it is today. It was not some pastoral idyll, it was just a time a lot like now, except it was a little harder to get a hold of people. But I do notice that when I talk to people in their 20s and 30s, they ofte…

> except it was a little harder to get a hold of people Hmm. Really? Few call centres or queuing systems around yet. My bank had a local number that was answered in 3 rings - often by the same person. So did the phone and electric companies, and the tax office. They might actually remember you. I probably couldn't ping a friend if they were out with the dog, or on holiday, and definitely not in the car - few had mobi…

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, May 25, 2019, 10:52 PM UTC

notjustanymike wrote: post #10

Things we have now that I would never want to be without: - Amazing browser debugging tools - Source Maps - Typescript - VSCode w/ Liveshare - Mostly standardized CSS - Automated build tools These are solutions to problems we had in the past.

Post by gshdg » Sat, May 25, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #45

smacktoward wrote: post #8

Let me answer your question with another question. How old are you? Because I'm in my 40s, which means I was in my 20s during the 1990s. And from my perspective, it was not a notably simpler time back then than it is today. It was not some pastoral idyll, it was just a time a lot like now, except it was a little harder to get a hold of people. But I do notice that when I talk to people in their 20s and 30s, they ofte…

> except it was a little harder to get a hold of people Hmm. Really? Few call centres or queuing systems around yet. My bank had a local number that was answered in 3 rings - often by the same person. So did the phone and electric companies, and the tax office. They might actually remember you. I probably couldn't ping a friend if they were out with the dog, or on holiday, and definitely not in the car - few had mobi…