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We’re approaching the limits of computer power – we need new programmers

theguardian.com

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Re: We’re approaching the limits of computer power – we need new programmers

#121

Post by burfog »

ledauphin wrote: post #10

I just don't buy this. I cut my teeth as a HPC programmer working with C and writing no-lock algorithms. There will always be a need for that, but realistically the vast majority of software being developed is simply not performance-critical. It's designed to work at human speed. Advances in language, compiler, and runtime implementations will continue to keep up with any growth in the need for performant application…

What about battery life?

If you prefer, call it carbon footprint. Python has a huge carbon footprint. We should get rid of slow languages for environmental reasons.

Re: We’re approaching the limits of computer power – we need new programmers

#122

Post by jlj »

Functional programming is something to watch and learn. It can help take advantage of multi-core single machines and distributed computing alike because it is thread safe due to using immutable variables and the mathematics behind pure functions. Compared to OOP, no locking, concurrency, or race conditions to worry about if used correctly.

Re: We’re approaching the limits of computer power – we need new programmers

#123

Post by Ericson2314 »

We are having worse and worse latency, though not bad throughput, but the real issue is complexity. We just keep on pilling more crap on top of the old crap.

I'm lucky at work we write lots of stuff to avoid the tell/mound, but hello! where is the rest of the industry on this?

[You can use our stuff if you like, it is all public. Let's rebuild together.]

Re: We’re approaching the limits of computer power – we need new programmers

#124

Post by Shorel »

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #49
sumanthvepa wrote: post #2

The renewed interest in C++ and other compiled languages is an indication of the need to get more efficient. Programmer skill will become more important in the future. But they won't be today's skills. I expect that programming in the future will be more about getting the AI to do what you want rather than writing code directly.

>The renewed interest in C++ and other compiled languages is an indication of the need to get more efficient. I kind of disagree with this based on intuition alone. Most developers, professional developers, are using web tech (JS stack in particular - Node and hyped front-end frameworks). Yet we"re seeing "interest" in compiled languages such as Rust, despite almost nobody using it professionally and almost nobody do…

At first we optimized languages for memory and CPU use, because there was so little of it.

When we could, we optimized for ease of writing code, and it lead to bloated and slow systems. This is the current status of things.

We are optimizing again for performance, but we want to have our cake and eat it, we want both the performance and the ease of writing code. And the reduction of bugs in the end result.

This change takes time, perhaps decades. Longer than bubbles and market growth. It takes time because we are curious, and we want to test all possibilities. We want fast games, easy abstractions, zero bugs, the whole package.

But it will happen, at some point. Rust, Go, D, may be one of these languages will replace Javascript, or may be it will be a totally new language.

Re: We’re approaching the limits of computer power – we need new programmers

#125

Post by sudosysgen »

throwaway17_17 wrote: post #78
quotemstr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the new interest in compiled language reflects anything other than ongoing cyclical changes in fashion. Neither "compiled" nor "interpreted" language families (the terms are vague and the same language can fall in both categories) has a slam dunk performance advantage over the other. > I expect that programming in the future will be more about getting the AI to do what you want rather than writing code…

It’s a small semantic nitpick, but I think that you have to qualify the domain of conversation in stating: ‘neither “compiled” or “interpreted” language families ... has a slam dunk performance advantage over the other.’ If this is universally qualified, where are the scientific HPC simulations written in python, AAA video games written in Haskell, and fin tech trading apps written in Lisp? I am not stating that ther…

Unity is also quite far from being known for the best performance.

Re: We’re approaching the limits of computer power – we need new programmers

#126

Post by wpietri »

nickpinkston wrote: post #59

We're mostly fighting Murphy's Law, not Moore's law. As said below, most problems are so far from being compute/$ or otherwise technically limited and far more about organizational / political issues putting vast inefficiencies into these systems and priorities that fund their creation.

Definitely. Honestly, I'd be excited if hardware stopped progressing. Ever-better hardware and ever-shifting platforms cover up a multitude of organizational sins. There's much less incentive to write good code given the rate at which code gets thrown out, and given what people are willing to spend on their AWS bills before asking if something could perhaps be improved.

Re: We’re approaching the limits of computer power – we need new programmers

#127

Post by city41 »

zamadatix wrote: post #105
pjc50 wrote: post #23

The major problem areas are those where it's economically "best" to do the computationally inefficient thing. The obvious example is the quick-to-build MVP, but many of the bigger problems come from platform conflicts. Because we have at least five different actively uncooperating operating system platforms, it's hard to build portable native apps - so people build electron apps instead. We also use the web browser a…

Plenty of people make Electron apps only aiming to target a single platform it just happens to be so easy to add the others that most do it. The real problem is native platforms suck to code for or have too high a barrier of entry.

It often seems the main target is the web, then Electron steps in to provide an “app”. Slack really comes to mind here.

Re: We’re approaching the limits of computer power – we need new programmers

#128

Post by pier25 »

michaelbrave wrote: post #48
pjc50 wrote: post #23

The major problem areas are those where it's economically "best" to do the computationally inefficient thing. The obvious example is the quick-to-build MVP, but many of the bigger problems come from platform conflicts. Because we have at least five different actively uncooperating operating system platforms, it's hard to build portable native apps - so people build electron apps instead. We also use the web browser a…

Flutter looks promising for solving a lot of the platform conflict problems.

Sadly the flutter team seems more focused on mobile and web than desktop.

Re: We’re approaching the limits of computer power – we need new programmers

#130

Post by trakout »

g82918 wrote: post #118
qwertywerty wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The quotes show they know it is an odd usage. Using scare quotes to mean that nobody else says something strikes me as odd, but you're probably correct.

Imagining you were doing so, what would you do to denote an intentional odd usage? (sic) is used if the originator is incorrect.

The word "mint" really takes the meaning out of the word "mine". True though, minting is part of the economics included in mining.

Usually governments mint coins, but no government (or centralized entity) currently operates a legitimate network that matches up with the same properties as bitcoin.

I might have used an asterisk, maybe? :)

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