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Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#111

Post by pedalpete »

thecleaner wrote: post #85
thaufeki wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that I like the term 'Web3', as it implies that everything will move in that direction, which I don't think will be the case. I just refer to it as the Decentralized Web. Centralization has many benefits over Decentralization and vice versa. Its a very healthy thing to happen though. I do think it has a place, and is a promising emerging market. Which is why I've been interested in learning development i…

Web3 means using UDP as the backbone protocol and with hole-punching it makes P2P interactions possible. Hence the whole decentralisation bit. Tbh ipv6 can also achieve the same goals but at the cost of de-anonymization since it's a unique marker.

Is that really the technology capability that has been added? I'm not sure you can talk about decentralized Web3 without talking about blockchain.

I credit much of Web2 kicking off with AJAX, HTML5, and CSS3. Though many others would say it was lead by mobile.

My general thoughts, it isn't one thing, or just one technology. Even Web1 was a combination of TCP/IP, HTML, HTTP, and Mosaic/Netscape.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#112

Post by feoren »

jakobnissen wrote: post #81

I think people will soon realize that code is a data structure, not text. Like a hash map or an array, its text representation is merely a human-readable interface to it. I predict the capabilities of IDEs will expand, and to make their state persistent, they will begin to store IDE-specific files in your source code directory. Eventually this will morph into the source code itself being stored in binary format and o…

When I see people talking about storing code in an AST representation or something similar, I see people who are focusing on the "happy path" and not really thinking about why code-as-text has been so sticky for half a century.

(1) Code spends a huge amount of time in a non-parsable state. I need to be able to save code even when it's not currently parsable into a valid AST of the language I am writing. Sometimes I even need to check in this code to my source control. You cannot have the primary storage of your code be valid, parsed syntax trees for this reason, so you need to invent a brand new format that is different from both text and the AST being modeled. This format needs to be optimized for programmer workflow, clarity, and communication; not optimized for the machine.

(2) You need to re-invent how source control works for your representation if you're not using text. This actually has a lot of potential -- syntax-aware merging done well would be a godsend. But this is a huge undertaking to do well, and problem 1 rears its head strongly here as well.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#113

Post by axegon_ »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #87
axegon_ wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this and for several major reasons: 1. Prices are down(yes, lower down your guns). I'm not talking about CPUs or GPUs but embedded products. It's absolutely mind blowing that you can get the computational power of a mid-90's computer with the size of a coin for just a few bucks. Same goes for sensors, transceivers, motors and communication modules. 2. 3D printing has come a long way, also dirt cheap and easi…

How cheap do you want PCBs to be? They're already at the point where shipping costs dominate the price. https://jlcpcb.com/

In the US maybe. In a small country in eastern Europe having this done in 24 hours for peanuts exists only in the realm of science fiction. The fastest and cheapest service I know of here is not that far from my flat and you'd be lucky to get them to do anything in less than a week and for less than 70-80 bucks, shipping not included.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#114

Post by lxxpxlxxxx »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #88
thecleaner wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shoes that tell you: stop landing on your heels so hard. This might happen quite quickly. Thing is how you walk and how much you abuse your legs can be a major source of problems like shot knees in the long run. And these things creep, they don't just happen quickly so you can't remedy it so fast.

Already exists. I managed a project for a well-known company in the sneaker industry that sends gait & foot pressure data from the shoe to an app and they have been working on this for probably close to a decade at this point. I can only assume that they've decided that commercialization outside the niche of Olympic athletes isn't worthwhile. And they are definitely not the only player since I recall writing some sim…

I remember when I played football (like 5 years ago) there were ads in the stores for cleats with chips in it for a lot of tracking, we didn't buy them because we didn't know how to use them so I don't know how they actually worked but the marketing was there (and I suspect the actual product too)

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#115

Post by mikewarot »

Here's my wish list of things to happen in 2022

Capability Based Security - I keep hoping this will be the year, as we're going to be in cybersecurity drama land until it gets adopted.

Rich text source - Why not include photos, and other stuff in your source code?

Tools that take source code, compile it into an abstract syntax tree, and let you tweak that tree, then spit back out refactored source code, possibly in a different language. Maybe it's possible to go all the way to LLVM and back to Pascal?

I would hope that someone comes up with a toolkit that puts a UI on the user's machine directly in touch with server code on the back end, without HTTPs or any of that type of cruft.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#117

Post by mikewarot »

kristov wrote: post #70

I am possibly alone in thinking the biggest thing to happen in computing in the 80s/90s was the spreadsheet. Having an immeasurable affect on the productivity of organizations large and small, to this day. So what does the 21st century version of the spreadsheet look like?

Spreadsheets that can contain database tables, yet prevent sorting only some rows or columns. Cells that can hold other sheets would be a nice addition too.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#118

Post by dgudkov »

No-code. It's not understood by software developers, but it introduces the joy of simple programming to non-technical people and that genie can't be put back in the bottle.

Serverless. Current clouds are a half-step because they partially abstract away hardware. Serverless is the ultimate cloud because it abstracts away all hardware.

Self-hosted open-source alternatives to public clouds. Public cloud providers use proprietary software to provide and manage cloud services. However, open-source alternatives will eventually appear and will only require a pool of machines (virtual or not) to operate in order to provide a set of cloud services - computation, storage, identity management, load balancing, etc. This will lead to decentralization and proliferation of private self-managed clouds.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing in computing / programming?

#119

Post by chudi »

jakobnissen wrote: post #81

I think people will soon realize that code is a data structure, not text. Like a hash map or an array, its text representation is merely a human-readable interface to it. I predict the capabilities of IDEs will expand, and to make their state persistent, they will begin to store IDE-specific files in your source code directory. Eventually this will morph into the source code itself being stored in binary format and o…

So you mean smalltalk or lisp?
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