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The Future of Programming (2013) [video]

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Re: The Future of Programming (2013) [video]

#2

Post by LAC-Tech »

Probably my favourite tech talk of all time. I did at least read the actor model paper! (though the 1973 one doesn't say much, you want the one with Baker, "Laws for Communicating Sequential Processes".

I still don't know what he means about not liking APIs though. "Communicating with Aliens", what insight am I missing?

Re: The Future of Programming (2013) [video]

#3

Post by kreetx »

This part is interesting with regarding to LLMs: https://youtu.be/8pTEmbeENF4?t=817. He presents as if it were the year 1973, pokes fun at APIs (think HTTP), then says that computers in the future will figure out by themselves how to talk to each other. The opposite had become true when the presentation was actually done, but now the situation is turning.

Re: The Future of Programming (2013) [video]

#6

Post by cfiggers »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #2

Probably my favourite tech talk of all time. I did at least read the actor model paper! (though the 1973 one doesn't say much, you want the one with Baker, "Laws for Communicating Sequential Processes". I still don't know what he means about not liking APIs though. "Communicating with Aliens", what insight am I missing?

When two humans want to talk but don't speak a shared language, if they spend enough time together, they will figure out how to communicate eventually.

But when two computers want to talk to each other and don't speak a "shared language" (aka, the client specifically must conform to the server's "language"—it's very one-sided in that sense) then no amount of time will allow them to learn one another's rules or settle on a shared communication contact without a human programmer getting involved.

Re: The Future of Programming (2013) [video]

#7

Post by dan-g »

keepamovin wrote: post #5

I like this guy. His work! But it seems like everything he did is from 10+ years ago. Where is he now?!?!

He's around! You can see his current work at https://worrydream.com. He's mostly been working on Dynamicland (https://dynamicland.org). He'll also occasionally post on Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/worrydream.com)

Re: The Future of Programming (2013) [video]

#9

Post by pjmlp »

The future we have yet to achieve as we kept ourselves too busy doing UNIX clones.

While the ecosystem got a few good ideas for software development, even the authors eventually moved on to creating other OS and programming languages designs, some of which closer to those ideas like Inferno and Limbo, or ACME in Plan 9.

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