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

The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

cacm.acm.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 228 posts

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

#141

Post by IQunder130 »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #72
javajosh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is economically worthless without making it artificially scarce. A lot of "software innovation" is not about building better software, but building software you can charge for , which means "walled gardens", patents, DRM, license servers, anti-tampering mechanisms, and the like. In essence all content (music, movies, software, books, etc) follows the same pattern. Note that profit-driven entities can give aw…

Linux is software, Linux is economically worth a lot, Linux isn't artificially scarce.

Control of where Linux development is going is indeed economically worth a lot. Copies of the Linux kernel are near enough to worthless for the distinction not to matter.

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

#142

Post by wayneftw »

UncleMeat wrote: post #135
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…

> Imagine being able to quickly and easily add your own custom programs to your iPhone without asking anyone's permission though? Cool? I'm a software engineer and I have no desire to do this. The number of people who care about this feature is vanishingly low. I think it is reasonable to lament losing a particular feature for tinkerers, but it becomes unreasonable to demand that businesses cater to this very small n…

The key here is that it's "badware as defined by Apple and Google" though. Who watches the watchers??

If you're not advocating self reliance and self governance for people, you're not thinking long term. It's historically proven bad advice to willingly give all control to central powers.

> ...locked down systems are a somewhat effective way of keeping badware off of devices for the masses.

Developers are not the masses. The masses aren't installing the necessary tools and compiling their own programs and they never will. I'd settle for signing a written agreement with Apple and waiting a week for approval when I buy my phone so that I can actually control my own device.

I'm not arguing for letting me put my apps on everyones iPhones, just mine.

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

#143

Post by IQunder130 »

kuschku wrote: post #53
koonsolo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the negative outlook? The world now is way more awesome for hackers than it was back then! 1. You can find any information you want, in an instant. 2. Hardware is very cheap, computers can be tiny, you can order components from anywhere 3. Robotics and electronics are way cooler now, with drones etc. 4. Software development is way more productive with all the libraries and tools we have right now. 5. When I was a…

> 2. Hardware is very cheap, computers can be tiny, you can order components from anywhere In the past I could get any component I might need from a local store in 20 minutes. now I've got 2 weeks to 3 months turnaround on shipping from shenzhen.

The obverse of this is that everybody can get whatever they need from Shenzen nowadays, not just some privileged American communities.

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

#144

Post by IQunder130 »

randcraw wrote: post #131
MarkusWandel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a computer geek from about 1981 onwards, starting with Commodore PETs at high school. These machines were uniquely accessible. You could do surprisingly creative graphics using only the graphic characters hardwired into the machine (no bitmaps, colours or sprites). But these characters were printed right on the keyboard, and could be used in normal BASIC "PRINT" statements to do quite performant animations and…

> With modern machines, even without the discouragement of locked down operating systems, missing accessible programming languages and such... there is just no hope of making something "cool" you can impress your friends with. Every modern computing machine I know allows you to add a very rich set of coding tools, other than unjailbroken mobile devices perhaps. Yeah, poor access to mobile sucks, but if you feel the n…

You are looking at this through the eyes of someone who is already comfortable with their understanding of computers and software. To a kid with no prior knowledge, the entry barriers might appear impossibly high.

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

#145

Post by IgorPartola »

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.

I am oversimplifying the situation. There are more than 1000 people in the world, everyone can enjoy cat videos. My main point is not that the world is divided into hacked and cat videos lovers. (There are two types of people: those who divide people into two categories and those that don’t :)).

My point is that there is a small percentage of the population who are makers and a large percentage who are consumers. The Internet of 30 years ago was mostly populated by the makers so it felt like everyone was a maker. Now it is much more representative of the real public because the consumers joined. It now feels like it’s mostly consumers because in the world’s population consumers outnumber makers by a large percentage. However, and this is the crux of my point, the absolute number of makers did not go down and in fact went up. You won’t find many makers in your Facebook feed, in relative numbers. But maker communities are bigger, better, easier to find, and easier to join than ever before. Just because consumers have joined the makers does not mean that things are worse. They are better. The rest is nostalgia.

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

#146

Post by EvanAnderson »

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 ...

I have changes I want to make to my iPhone. Some of them would be as easy as adding a trigger to an SQLite datbase that a stock "app" uses. I'm not "allowed" to.

I don't think companies should be legally permitted to take away the rights of an owner to do what they please with their own property. Locked bootloaders, e-fuses, crypto keys buried inside hardware, etc, should all be able to be overridden by a physical interlock. (Like Google did with Chromebooks, for example.)

Flip that switch and you lose the "walled garden". Okay. So be it. No running software that "trusts" my device (which is, arguably, misplaced trust anyway). No "app store" for me. I can live with that. It's my device and my choice to make. I get to make the call to give up "security" for freedom.

It's morally wrong to take away the ability of the owner to do what they wish with their devices. It should be illegal too.

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

#147

Post by EvanAnderson »

mikestew wrote: post #127
randcraw wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

iOS works the way it does to make money for Apple. First it was to appease carriers to enable the devices to exist. Then it was to appease publishers to get content on the devices. Now it's to make that sweet, sweet app store commission. That there are benefits for device owners who are willing to give up their freedom is a happy accident.

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

#148

Post by shadowgovt »

higerordermap wrote: post #117
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…

But most tinkering journeys do not start with dedicated hardware. They start with hardware intended for something else, generally on a quest to solve some problem or do something cool..

The evolution of graphics cards into CUDA machines for machine learning applications is one example of this phenomenon.

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

#149

Post by ravi-delia »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #146
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 ... I have changes I want to make to my iPhone. Some of them would be as easy as adding a trigger to an SQLite datbase that a stock "app" uses. I'm not "allowed" to. I don't think companies should be legally permitted to take away the rights of an owner to do what they please with their own property. Locked bootloaders, e-fuses, crypto keys b…

Believe me, in general I'm with you. But at the end of the day you just don't have to buy an iphone. Get an android device, flash it with Linux, buy a pinephone, do whatever you want! But Apple doesn't sell tinker's devices, they sell a walled garden. Why force them to spend even 10 seconds of effort on something that isn't their business, when there are plenty of other options?

There's a reason I don't have any Apple device: they don't make anything that I want. It seems pretty pointless to mandate that all companies must sell products that I like.

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

#150

Post by EvanAnderson »

ravi-delia wrote: post #149
EvanAnderson wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the fact I don’t have to muck about with my iPhone to get it to work ... I have changes I want to make to my iPhone. Some of them would be as easy as adding a trigger to an SQLite datbase that a stock "app" uses. I'm not "allowed" to. I don't think companies should be legally permitted to take away the rights of an owner to do what they please with their own property. Locked bootloaders, e-fuses, crypto keys b…

Believe me, in general I'm with you. But at the end of the day you just don't have to buy an iphone . Get an android device, flash it with Linux, buy a pinephone, do whatever you want! But Apple doesn't sell tinker's devices, they sell a walled garden. Why force them to spend even 10 seconds of effort on something that isn't their business, when there are plenty of other options? There's a reason I don't have any App…

Why force them to spend even 10 seconds of effort on something that isn't their business...

The law should make it "their business". I don't believe it should be possible to waive your right to legally do what you want with your property.

(I have similar feelings about restrictive covenants in the conveyance of real property, for example.)

Since we're editing here:

It seems pretty pointless to mandate that all companies must sell products that I like.

We mandate lots of consumer protections. This seems no different to me.

Post reply on HN