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Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

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Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#141

Post by mcv »

andyana wrote: post #123
mcv wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expected RISC to overtake CISC much sooner than it did. I expected IPv6 to be adopted quickly. I expected 6GB to be more storage than I could ever fill. I expected Windows to be quickly dismissed and Unix to become the standard. I expected to have a screen built into my glasses by now.

Regarding screens in glasses: where is the hold up? I've been thinking of prototyping something for the past few weeks (only thinking, hence my question).

Well, Google Glass was launched big some years ago, and everybody mocked it.

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#142

Post by mcv »

mceachen wrote: post #127
rcurry wrote: post #11

I’m embarrassed to say this on HN, but straight up I thought 9600 baud connections were the shit in the late eighties - who would ever need more bandwidth than this?!? Now I get pissed off when the 4K video on my phone stutters for a second.

I made fun of my friend for buying a 9600 baud modem. Because, _duh_: nobody can read faster than 600 baud.

I would be impressed by that. Our first modem was 300 baud, and that's apparently exactly the speed you can still keep up with the text as it comes in.

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#143

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #137
andreskytt wrote: post #136

I started working as a VB dev in 1993 while studying for a cs degree. I can’t really remember any specific thoughts about the future tech, we were too busy literally inventing it. All I remember is this amazement at how most people still don’t realize computers would completely tranform the entire society, how easily solvable many problems are with some simple code. But also reading the Sprawl Trilogy (which has mate…

What did you and colleagues invent?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Estonia / https://e-estonia.com probably...

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#144

Post by CodeGlitch »

paxys wrote: post #16

Definitely thought that consumer software (the thing sold in boxes on store shelves) would continue to get bigger as a category rather than die out completely. Anyone remember that famous photo of the guy jumping with joy after snagging a launch copy of Windows 95? No one knew what the internet really was and what it would become. Not Bill Gates, not anyone else. Developers believed that processing power, RAM, storag…

> guy jumping with joy after snagging a launch copy of Windows 95?

I was pretty excited about it too... And I was a kid in the 90s. I once worked with a guy who got excited about new releases of directx... Which I also admit could be a little exciting

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#145

Post by RGamma »

joemaller1 wrote: post #43

I did not expect the internet would become so ephemeral.

This hit me the hardest. We are becoming the feed.

And we're going to find out just how short attention spans can become and how information overload interferes with memory formation.

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#146

Post by slickrick216 »

astrange wrote: post #131
slickrick216 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really interesting and reflected in some things like dreamweaver and Oracle Apex. I can actually see some of this happening in the crypto space. Things like MetaMask and now chainlink combining into some form of low code smart contract app tool. As you say though even in this scenario devs don’t go away.

Yes, it's very profitable for devs because you can just steal everyone's money, since the smart contract language was invented by people who did zero reading about safe program design.

So just like normal payment processing code then.

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#147

Post by astrange »

slickrick216 wrote: post #146
astrange wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's very profitable for devs because you can just steal everyone's money, since the smart contract language was invented by people who did zero reading about safe program design.

So just like normal payment processing code then.

Except half the time the bank is also a scam and there's no legal recourse.

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#148

Post by golergka »

spamizbad wrote: post #15

Oh god, there were so many boneheaded 90s predictions about computers. 1) We just expected single core performance to double forever every 2 years or so. Many of us were ignorant of single-core performance scaling and the memory wall issues. I want to be clear: Computer Architects were warning people about this in the early 90s but many ignored their inconvenient truth. 2) 2D GUIs would evolve into 3D GUIs - maybe VR…

> 5) All programming would be object-oriented (We are talking 90s style definition here)

During the 00s and early 10s, it felt like it is.

Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?

#150

Post by atlantageek »

bradleyjg wrote: post #94
swman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Low/no code drag-and-drop style programming tools would take away many dev jobs this is still something some of us think about today

We keep on chasing and chasing. I think the closest we’ve come so far is excel and most in programming scorn it instead of revering it.

IKR. Excel and the other spreadsheet variants are the gateway drug to software development. There is no other tool that has such a low entry to barrier and is so enticing to scale up into a ridiculously complex product. It eventually does get to a point that when the original user/developer is ready to change their job someone says 'OK can we turn this into a webapp or something... this is nuts. Lets hire someone from guru.com to do this.'
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