I thought MS Comic Chat [1] style was going to be the future of UI design. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Comic_Chat
Neat idea, reminds me of Memojis in iMessage
Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?
221–230 of 469 posts
Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
It still is. But nobody is using that feature. People choose to centralize and visit the same 10 sites and to avoid self-hosting. Nothing is preventing society from using the internet in that way, but it's sooo much easier for the average non-tech person to not self-host an email server versus using something like gmail. It's the same reason I do not own a lift for my car.. sure technically I can install a lift at my…
> Nothing is preventing society from using the internet in that way You are _technically_ correct, but I think you are minimizing network effects by simply calling it "easier". These days you are pretty much required to use those same 10 sites if you want to interact with anyone, do business, or find useful information. Those 10 sites have effectively captured the Internet.
>, but I think you are minimizing network effects by simply calling it "easier".
The gp is saying the millions choosing the "easier" action is what causes the network effects.
E.g. another example that applies to tech-savvy programmers: most developers have the knowledge (or can Google a tutorial) to host their own personal git server but most choose not to. The collective millions choosing not to bother with self-hosting leads to emergence of something like Github.
Signing up for a free account on Github is easier than:
- hosting a personal repo at home on a laptop or Raspberry Pi
- buying a $10/month shared VPS server to host it
So even before Github had network effects (say less than 1000 user accounts), it was still easier to create an account on an unproven Github platform than self-host. Those early adopters leads to future strong network effects.
But that also leads to unwanted side effect of Github deleting repositories from DMCA takedowns, etc (aka "censorship").
Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?
#223The late 80s and early 90s were an amazing time. The IBM PC was open to third-party add-ons, and that changed the whole world. Brand-new gadgets let the computer do more and more things, and then do it better than the first-generation gadgets. It just kept coming like a tidal wave. And then... And then we got things that were "good enough" at everything that anybody wanted a PC to do, and we went past that to silly s…
I think that time was a bit of a golden age. Pre-PC, users were at the mercy of mainframe administrators. On their desk was a terminal that gave you a view into somebody else's computer. Then IBM started a revolution - giving control to users and they changed the world for the better. It didn't last long though. In the 90's PCs started their devolution back to being little more than dumb terminals giving us a view into somebody else's computer.
Ironically enough, it was free software that powered the building of the web-based world that removed power and control from users and subjected them to the unblinking eye of pervasive surveillance.
Microsoft has given up. I'm convinced that they adopted Chromium for their browser because they see Electron or something like it as the future of application development.
Thankfully Apple seems to still believe in native applications. All the interesting indie software seems to be on the Mac. Apple is trying to make speech recognition and OCR work better on-device than off. They are investing in CPUs because Intel can't figure out how to ship anymore. They still have stores where you can touch and see the stuff they sell. It's the most human big tech company out there right now. It might be the only one.
Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?
#224I went to university in September 1997. In my first week there I used the internet for the first time. It took me about an hour to decide I wanted to learn how to make my own website, to start figuring out what I needed to learn, and to fire up an editor and to write my first HTML tag. 6 months later I got my first freelance gig. I've been making web stuff ever since.
I got it right, but with hindsight it was pretty obvious it was going to be a big thing.
Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?
#225I expect the act of programming will change quite a bit over the next 10-15 years. We will incorporate machine learning algorithms more easily in many workflows, so part of your work will be training models to produce black box functions that you’ll call to get answers to complicated questions. Obviously, this happens now, but I think it will become more pervasive and many more programmers will find the pattern incor…
I realize I was supposed to be in the past. In ‘93, when I first saw email and newsgroups, I thought the Internet would be a force for good that would allow free communication that would have to be a benefit for humanity.
Like many, I didn’t anticipate how it would also amplify our negative qualities too.
I still think it can be a benefit, but it will be a battle against our dark natures.
Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?
#226I expect the act of programming will change quite a bit over the next 10-15 years. We will incorporate machine learning algorithms more easily in many workflows, so part of your work will be training models to produce black box functions that you’ll call to get answers to complicated questions. Obviously, this happens now, but I think it will become more pervasive and many more programmers will find the pattern incor…
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Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?
#227I really believed computers would make people smarter, better informed, able to make more rational decisions. They'd understand and trust science more, make better political decisions. We even had a slogan for it: "computers are bicycles for the mind": https://www.brainpickings.org/2011/12/21/steve-jobs-bicycle-... I was so naive...
SMBC has a comic about this - "Wacky 90s fads" https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fads
I admit that I too was once a believer...
Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?
#228Not quite in the 90's but a bit later I was sure that when Moore's Law would stop we would see the trend move to cores. I wrote an article[1] about this change and how we should all prepare for it :-D
If I could tell my young self that as of 2021 we are not talking about kilo- or mega-cores but that my new M1 which I am very excited about is a mere 8, I would have been severely disappointed.
[1] https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/104365/Feature_The_Trans...
Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?
#229When I was choosing my university major, everybody was telling me don't choose computer science. The job market is saturated and everybody is a software engineer, choose electronics. I chose CS. Fast-forward today, most of the people I know who were in electronic have switched to software.
> who were in electronic have switched to software.
No educated person in the late 90s could have anticipated how Foxconn would obviate "electronics."
Re: Ask HN: 90s programmers, what did you expect the future of tech to look like?
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember talking in mid 99 about ipv6, while I was at a web company. Immediately on seeing it I said "this is crazy, and isn't going to take off". "Why not?" I got from some of the network folks there. My response then is mostly as it is now - it's just too confusing to read and write. The UIs - even at the time - telling people to put in a dotted quad - were... manageable. 4 is an easy number to understand. Number…
I have had native IPv6 at home for over 10 years.
our regional TWC didn't offer it, and our local spectrum doesn't offer it for residential. I can get it for our office now, and might, but my own desire to experiment/learn isn't there, and no one else in the office here is asking for it right now.