The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology • Hacker News Board

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#121

Post by wayneftw » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:28 PM UTC

mattkevan wrote: post #106

Thing is, in the ‘olden days’, the only thing you could do with a home computer was tinker - the job of a computer was to be a computer but little else. And the number of people interested in doing that was small. Today, the job of a computer is everything. Computers are in everything and do everything. They are our interface to the world. Their value is what they enable - writing, tax returns, video consumption, gam…

> I love the fact I don’t have to muck about with my iPhone to get it to work...

Imagine being able to quickly and easily add your own custom programs to your iPhone without asking anyone's permission though? Also, what if - as the owner of that device - you had full control over it's capabilities like you do with a desktop computer? Adding these abilities certainly would not be the downfall of phone ecosystems as we know them. People that want convenience wouldn't leave their app store.

The fact that they are our interface to the world is exactly the reason why we need to take control of them away from the Apple/Google oligarchy. People need to stop comparing these devices to gaming consoles, which don't impact the world even a fraction as much as smartphones, when we're talking about making new rules for running smartphone platforms.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#122

Post by randcraw » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

wayneftw wrote: post #121

mattkevan wrote: post #106

Thing is, in the ‘olden days’, the only thing you could do with a home computer was tinker - the job of a computer was to be a computer but little else. And the number of people interested in doing that was small. Today, the job of a computer is everything. Computers are in everything and do everything. They are our interface to the world. Their value is what they enable - writing, tax returns, video consumption, gam…

> I love the fact I don’t have to muck about with my iPhone to get it to work... Imagine being able to quickly and easily add your own custom programs to your iPhone without asking anyone's permission though? Also, what if - as the owner of that device - you had full control over it's capabilities like you do with a desktop computer? Adding these abilities certainly would not be the downfall of phone ecosystems as we…

I would love to fully access the data on my phone. But of course it would also introduce security holes currently unimagined. Maybe someone can devise a secure sandbox model to enable this, but after Java's failure to resolve this problem, I'm not holding my breath.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#123

Post by imbnwa » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

rimliu wrote: post #52

jacquesm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mainstream was never going to be part of the tinkerers and hackers. But the depressing thing is to what extent todays hackers have become consumers. But, we've still got linux and a lot of hardware support for that. I'll likely be the last bastion of general purpose computing.

No, the depressing thing is how many people on HN want others to be just like them.

Which is why certain people question "culture fit" as an exhaustive reason for not hiring

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#124

Post by a_c_s » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

wayneftw wrote: post #121

mattkevan wrote: post #106

Thing is, in the ‘olden days’, the only thing you could do with a home computer was tinker - the job of a computer was to be a computer but little else. And the number of people interested in doing that was small. Today, the job of a computer is everything. Computers are in everything and do everything. They are our interface to the world. Their value is what they enable - writing, tax returns, video consumption, gam…

> I love the fact I don’t have to muck about with my iPhone to get it to work... Imagine being able to quickly and easily add your own custom programs to your iPhone without asking anyone's permission though? Also, what if - as the owner of that device - you had full control over it's capabilities like you do with a desktop computer? Adding these abilities certainly would not be the downfall of phone ecosystems as we…

Nobody's permission is required to write apps for your own iOS device.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#125

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:51 PM UTC

a_c_s wrote: post #124

wayneftw wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love the fact I don’t have to muck about with my iPhone to get it to work... Imagine being able to quickly and easily add your own custom programs to your iPhone without asking anyone's permission though? Also, what if - as the owner of that device - you had full control over it's capabilities like you do with a desktop computer? Adding these abilities certainly would not be the downfall of phone ecosystems as we…

Nobody's permission is required to write apps for your own iOS device.

[deleted]

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#126

Post by garden_hermit » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:54 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #108

IgorPartola wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that those people who are happy with YouTube videos wouldn’t have been tinkering with computers in 2006. You have to remember that tinkering with computers was and still is a nerdy niche. Let’s say there are 1000 people in the world. Of those, 10 are hackers (in the “tinker with computers” sense, not on the malicious sense), 20 are enthusiasts, the rest are neither. In 1990, you’d have 15 people on…

You are creating a false dichotomy of cat videos vs. hacker. I've watched a cat video or two. I've also spent the vast majority of my life programming (coming up on 40). My point is, video games were my gateway to programming. I got into mods and then expanded from there. I'm sure I am not alone. It's these natural paths that spark curiosity which are being cut off.

Is there any evidence that these paths are being cut? Mod communities for video games seem like they are thriving. Look at the sheer array of Minecraft mods, or mods for nearly any popular game on Steam.

Combine this with popular and easy game making software like RPGMaker, or even the ease that someone can set up a basic game on Unity. Beyond this, there are programs like Scratch and Processing that allow for fun and relatively easy computational tinkering.

I doubt the natural paths of curiosity have shrunk, though they may look different. Rather, the number of people using computers has massively increased, and the number of computer "tinkerers" is just a smaller proportion of people of the larger whole.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#127

Post by mikestew » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:54 PM UTC

randcraw wrote: post #122

wayneftw wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love the fact I don’t have to muck about with my iPhone to get it to work... Imagine being able to quickly and easily add your own custom programs to your iPhone without asking anyone's permission though? Also, what if - as the owner of that device - you had full control over it's capabilities like you do with a desktop computer? Adding these abilities certainly would not be the downfall of phone ecosystems as we…

I would love to fully access the data on my phone. But of course it would also introduce security holes currently unimagined. Maybe someone can devise a secure sandbox model to enable this, but after Java's failure to resolve this problem, I'm not holding my breath.

But of course it would also introduce security holes currently unimagined

I would argue that at least some of those holes were indeed imagined, that’s why iOS works the way it does and not the way parent would like.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#128

Post by idle_zealot » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

a_c_s wrote: post #124

wayneftw wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love the fact I don’t have to muck about with my iPhone to get it to work... Imagine being able to quickly and easily add your own custom programs to your iPhone without asking anyone's permission though? Also, what if - as the owner of that device - you had full control over it's capabilities like you do with a desktop computer? Adding these abilities certainly would not be the downfall of phone ecosystems as we…

Nobody's permission is required to write apps for your own iOS device.

Maybe not to write them, but to run them you need Apple to sign them. A free developer account can be used to have Apple sign your app, but then Apple will only give you permission to run that app for 7 days, and only give you permission to install 3 apps signed that way at a given time. In any case, side loading iOS applications absolutely requires Apple's permission.

Unless you were talking about jailbreaking.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#129

Post by Lio » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #65

exporectomy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really any more limiting? They can make programs in Scratch or other web apps on their phone. It's not "real" native software but it wasn't in the 1980's either. Kids then used BASIC interpreters. Compilers for "real" programming languages like C were unaffordable. Even assembly language and machine language were often inaccessible because computers didn't have an assembler or hex editor and you couldn't get ne…

You can’t use Scratch on your iPhone, and the built-in basic programming was far more “native” than any similar smartphone equivalent we have today. My TI-89 calculator remains way more programmable than my smartphone. I’m not sure why it has become so common on Hacker News to defend this trend and/or pretend it’s not a trend.

Isn’t that the wrong comparison though? If you want to run scratch just use something other than an iPhone.

When I was a kid we had 8bit micros. They were programmable but they were also eye wateringly expensive. So it was a struggle to own anything you could program at all.

Also they all came with closed source, proprietary OSs.

I used to spend a fair amount of time just starring at adverts for things I couldn’t afford and that would be obsolete before I could.

Now you can get a whole computer given away free on the front cover of a magazine and it will do a pretty good job of running scratch for you.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#130

Post by ip26 » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

This fragmentation means that parts of computing will progress at different rates. This will be fine for applications that move in the 'fast lane,' where improvements continue to be rapid, but bad for applications that no longer get to benefit from field-leaders pushing computing forward, and are thus consigned to a 'slow lane' of computing improvements. This transition may also slow the overall pace of computer improvement, jeopardizing this important source of economic prosperity.

This is perceptive, but also red ocean thinking. Moving ML to GPU is only bad for other workloads if CPU languishes as a result. But I think there's reason to believe it's a blue ocean. The more performance ML gets out of GPU, the more money the ML business can pour into semiconductors, batteries, EDA, and so forth. CPU benefits from all of these.

I think you can see this at work in the laptop market. Cell phone R&D has driven battery technology. Server R&D has driven efficient high-performance x86 cores. Both have driven power-efficient process nodes. Put them together and you can make incredible laptops.