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Ten predictions (2004)

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Re: Ten predictions (2004)

#101

Post by jiggy2011 »

Nursie wrote: post #42
friendly_chap wrote: post #29

1. XML databases will surpass relational databases in popularity by 2011. We got NoSQL (esp. JSON based ones) instead of XML. Close enough though. 2. Someone will make a lot of money by hosting open-source web applications. Github is cool but with all the cheapskate web devs (no offense, I am one of them) I don't think it is _that_ profitable. 3. Multi-threaded programming will fall out of favor by 2012. Not really.…

The XML things is quite amusing, given how far out of favour XML went. XML has now failed hard AFAICT. But I can agree the spirit of the prediction lives on in the form NoSQL and JSON.

Has it failed? Or have people just stopped trying to shoehorn it everywhere?

There are cases where XML is a great format. For example in the past I wrote a system for interfacing with a government department.

The thing was an epic of about 30 different schemas, however being able to actually look at a concrete schema for specification and actually be able to test against it was invaluable.

Trying to build that thing with JSON would have driven me to tears.

Re: Ten predictions (2004)

#102

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #97
dagw wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half the programmers and web developers/designers I know here in Sweden have Apple laptops, (including several Windows devs). Peeking into random coffee shops and walking past university campuses also seem to indicate that they're quite popular overall. Of course all those people could simply be fanboys who acquired the taste trough some snob blogs, but I'm not sure how to tell.

People at universities and who work at the sort of jobs you can do from coffeeshops are probably significantly more affluent that average.

Hence Apple's profit share is much better than its market share.

Re: Ten predictions (2004)

#103

Post by Guillaume86 »

franze wrote: post #55
ipedrazas wrote: post #20

Anyone willing to write 10 predictions for 2020?

1) in 2020 most programmers will still be average 2) in 2020 browsers will support a multitude of programming languages natively, most of them functional 3) in 2020 linkedin will be dead 4) in 2020 there will be a huge governmental campaign to teach kids programming, starting in pre-school 5) in 2020 there will be an SVG that is to SVG what HTML5 was to XHTML 6) in 2020 TV will still be mostly watched in 2D 7) in 202…

2) is very optimistic (I wouldn't bet a dollar on it)

8) I'm not sure what you mean with that one, what kind of alternative? (given you seem to exclude transpilers/preprocessors)

Re: Ten predictions (2004)

#104

Post by stinky613 »

yen223 wrote: post #92
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook already existed when this was written. HN was just around the corner and fits a lot better, imo. I figured "you and I" referred to developers and entrepeneurs, not the general public.

I don't think Facebook was big at the time, was it?

If you were in college in 2004 it was pretty unavoidable

Re: Ten predictions (2004)

#105

Post by friendly_chap »

cdf wrote: post #95
friendly_chap wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predicting that a language without a type system is the future is pretty dumb in itself. I give y'all an other one: "cars without brakes are the future".

Well, not sure about cars, but bicycles without brakes are getting pretty hip...

:D Good catch.

Re: Ten predictions (2004)

#106

Post by PommeDeTerre »

derefr wrote: post #67
friendly_chap wrote: post #29

1. XML databases will surpass relational databases in popularity by 2011. We got NoSQL (esp. JSON based ones) instead of XML. Close enough though. 2. Someone will make a lot of money by hosting open-source web applications. Github is cool but with all the cheapskate web devs (no offense, I am one of them) I don't think it is _that_ profitable. 3. Multi-threaded programming will fall out of favor by 2012. Not really.…

> 5. Lisp will be in the top 10 most popular programming languages by 2010. This failed hard. I don't know about hard. I can now imagine a day where Clojure is the predominant JVM language--whereas if you told me five years ago a Lisp would be even as popular as Clojure is now, I would have scoffed. Now, the by 2010 part is wrong, indeed. But I see these predictions as being more about acceleration than current veloc…

I think you're overestimating the popularity of Clojure.

While it's not as totally obscure as many other Lisp, Scheme or Lisp-like language implementations, it's not very widely used at all. Its penetration is minimal, even compared to Scala (which has seen much more significant usage, but still pales in comparison to Java).

While Clojure is a step in a better direction, I don't think it's gaining traction all that quickly. There's a whole lot of existing Java and Scala code that would need to be completely discarded or ignored in order for Clojure's usage to be considered as having any impact.

Re: Ten predictions (2004)

#107

Post by leoedin »

johndavidback wrote: post #89
dools wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. Someone will make a lot of money by hosting open-source web applications. Github is cool but with all the cheapskate web devs (no offense, I am one of them) I don't think it is _that_ profitable. I think he means more like wordpress.com, WPEngine and those ilk. Those are currently the most lucrative, but there are other examples of businesses monetising open source by hosting it.

I think more specifically he means things like Heroku or Modulus.

I'm not sure if that's what he means. The discussion of the point specifically mentions applications like bug trackers and wikis - not software that tends to be developed in house. Heroku is generally used for hosting applications that you wrote, rather than for hosting open source stacks developed by others (e.g. phpBB or MediaWiki).

Saying that, it all falls under the general trend of providing system administration as a service. Given how much ongoing effort is required to maintain secure, up to date and efficient servers, this is probably a good thing.

Re: Ten predictions (2004)

#108

Post by CodeCube »

friendly_chap wrote: post #39
wwwtyro wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. "hosting open-source web applications" does not really describe GitHub 3. He's not talking about using multiple cores, he's talking about using multiple threads vs (for example) multiple processes. 6. Reddit, Hacker News

2. I think github is the most notable example. 3. Gotta reread that. 6. Oh come on, facebook, youporn, whatever. As I said, too vague.

I think for #1, there are a number of hosting providers that match this description, such as Dreamhost, that offer a number of open source web apps that you can install with a single click. They manage them, upgrade them, back them up ... all you gotta do is pay them.

That being said, GitHub does indeed match the description, though I think people are thinking about the code they are hosting for other people ... but I think where they fit the description is with the fact that they are hosting Git for you (and making some money through enterprise services).

Re: Ten predictions (2004)

#109

Post by namdnay »

mseebach wrote: post #69
friendly_chap wrote: post #29

1. XML databases will surpass relational databases in popularity by 2011. We got NoSQL (esp. JSON based ones) instead of XML. Close enough though. 2. Someone will make a lot of money by hosting open-source web applications. Github is cool but with all the cheapskate web devs (no offense, I am one of them) I don't think it is _that_ profitable. 3. Multi-threaded programming will fall out of favor by 2012. Not really.…

3: He explicitly mentions message passing and multi-process as opposed to multi-threaded, and that's dead on right. F#, Clojure, Scala, Erlang and Node are all approaches to concurrency that doesn't involve the developer dealing with threads.

And in the enterprise world, everything is managed in the Spring/JMS parts, which handle all the multithreaded stuff for you.

Re: Ten predictions (2004)

#110

Post by nullymcnull »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #90
bazzargh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? According to Scott Chacon himself, it was profitable even back in 2010. http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/24/github-one-million/ Or this: http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/news/github-gets-100-million-inve... Announcing the investment on the GitHub blog, CEO Tom Preston-Warner admitted it wasn’t that they necessarily needed it: “Our company has been profitable for years, is growing fast, and doesn’t need money. So why b…

Ah, sorry. I thought they were still in start-up mode. It does seem a bit early for them to be turning a profit; I hope they are investing enough.

So, you were assuming that they weren't making a profit based on some sort of gut feeling that they were "still in start-up mode", but you used quite absolute language suggesting personal knowledge of the state of their books.
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