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Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
171–180 of 183 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
No progress in language theory can fix the fundamental problem of software verification: you need a formal specification to have anything to verify. Who wants to write not only a detailed spec for their code, but a spec that has well defined semantics in some kind of logic? Nobody, that's who. There are very few properties that you care about that are both sufficiently easy to encode in a formal specification and not…
Even more, software development now involves an assumption of the average manager or customer that some extra feature can be added halfway through. Is the customer going to be happy with "we've billed $X for a formal spec and that means that we can't make the change that you want, that seems simple without $Y dollars for changes to it and the code." Notice that software methodologies have gone the opposite direction…
But the features are not arbitrary. The vast majority of features are common among many applications, and a template formal spec can be built to satisfy those features. Once formal spec of the building blocks is created, there will only be the small portion of unique code that needs a unique formal spec.
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the philosophical side, I recently published a paper which could potentially lead to a whole new genre: making actual scientific (=falsifiable) progress on the previously-ineffable question, "Do we live in a simulation?" "A type of simulation which some experimental evidence suggests we don't live in" https://philpapers.org/archive/ALEATO-6.pdf
The x - ˆx property is very easy to avoid when building a simulator. Most server-grade computers already use error correcting codes for their memory. Or, the simulator could just abort and restart at a recent checkpoint if an error is detected. It's possible to detect errors with arbitrarily low false-negative rate for a small additional cost of computing and storing checksums. Nevertheless, it's an interesting obser…
You're right of course. Nevertheless there's a difference between saying "the simulating computer probably uses error-correcting codes or something" (speculation) vs. saying "an experiment suggests (same thing)" (science).
To borrow from Nick Bostrom: suppose we run two types of simulations. Important simulations and un-important simulations. For the important sims, we use error-correcting codes, we save checkpoint images, etc. For the unimportant sims, we don't do those things, in order to save money. This allows us to run far more unimportant sims than important sims. Thus, if someone is incarnated randomly in one of the sims, it's probably one of the cheap ones (just because there are more cheap sims than important sims, by basic economics). The point is just to show that it is possible for a philosopher to argue against error-correcting codes etc. Indeed, if we leave it to philosophers, we'll probably never make progress.
We need to appeal to the muse of science, that harsh mistress who serves us cold hard facts, every single one of which throws 50% of philosophers out into the darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth :)
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#174Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#175Blockchain, though no one on hn really understands it. :D
It's an unfortunate characteristic of many in the cryptocurrency community, that they think anyone who doesn't support crypto simply doesn't understand it. And by extension, as soon as they do understand it they will become supporters. No. There are those who do understand blockchain and still don't support it. A great example is professor Jorge Stolfi. He is one of the more prominent detractors, and yet he routinely…
The thing is, 99% of readers here think bitcoin is shit, because of the go to arfuments, that bitcoin is too slow and only used by criminal and by extension, they don't like the blockchain either even though the weaknesses of Bitcoin have already been solved by many blockchains.
But they don't know that, so they keep bashing the blockchain without having any knowledge of other good platforms.
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#176Open source computing hardware. RISC V[0]
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#177Programatic identification and comprehension of morality in software applications is a fascinating area!
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#178AI, machine learning, and neural networks are, of courwe, booming, but I consider them to be hyped. I consider type theory and formal verification to be more promising (but more academic). Distributed systems and everything having to do with parallel and/or high-performance systems is a good midway between what the industry likes and what's interesting from an academic point of view.
Haha. Formal verification has been around for 40/50 years and we can't say it is a wide success from a industrial point of view. It has some achievements in terms of results/methods and projects checked, but on a daily basis, pretty much no one uses it. We are ages away of having every programmer understanding formal verification and having all programs verified/proved. Type theory is in a similar situation. Many iss…
You're absolutely right, and that's exactly why I am enthusiastic about these fields. I think there is a ton of potential, and that these fields will be booming once the industry discovers this.
Of course, the point is not to prove every program correct. But it should be feasible to prove security-critical parts correct, especially for large companies.
The biggest problem is that formal verification is about as un-sexy as it gets, since it has no applications an sich.
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#179Functional programming!
Functional programming languages have several classic features that are now gradually adopted by none FP languages.
Lambda expressions [1] is one such feature originating from FP languages such as Standard ML (1984) or Haskell (1990) that is now implemented in C#3.0 (2007), C++11 (2011), Java8 (2014) and even JavaScript (ECMAScript 6, 2015).
Pattern matching [2] is another feature that is now^2015 implemented in C#7.0. My bet is that Java and other will follow in the next versions.
Here is a list of FP features. Some of which are already adopted by none FP languages: Lambda expressions, Higher order functions, Pattern matching, Currying, List comprehension, Lazy evaluation, Type classes, Monads, No side effects, Tail recursion, Generalized algebraic datatypes, Type polymorphism, Higher kinded types, First class citicens, Immutable variables.
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Possible jobs include: - Working as a lawyer in a law firm and being the expert/contact person for any tech stuff. - Working as project mananger for Legal Tech in a law firm (Magic Circle law firms are already having these jobs) - Being a lawyer specialised in IT/tech/IP laws, which require a domain understanding. - Working for or founding a Legal Tech start-up. - Owning a law firm that is having an automated workflo…
It's good to hear that there are plenty of technology focused opportunities in the legal profession. The only one I had thought about prior to your comment was specialising in IP and technology, so I will definitely look into those other avenues.
I worked for Legalzoom in the United States for about 5 years, there is a lot of opportunity for disruption, and at last count there were re 500 something startups in the US.
A combo of law and tech would be awesome, that's what one of our co-founders who was a developer did. He went back to school and got a law degree.