From: Mike Linksvayer (ml@gondwanaland.com)
Date: Sat Mar 30 2002 - 04:31:49 MST
On Sat, 2002-03-30 at 01:54, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Those were simply the largest technological segments affected.
> Most high technology was hit to some degree. The dot coms were
> not as worthless as they are often portrayed. Many quite strong
> and worthwhile companies died along with the rest or are barely
> surviving. Quite a few had interesting technological edges that
> could have made a difference in what was available for the rest
> of us. Dot coms got caught up in the super hype but I don't
> believe they created it or that the crash was altogether or even
> mainly a healthy thing. The telecomms were not just spending VC
> money, nor were some of the "dot.coms".
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/25/technology/ebusiness/25NECO.html
83% of companies entering 2001 with venture funding still live. Not
sure whether I'm surprised or not. The rapid adaptation that enabled
this survival rate would seem to speak very well of the Silicon
Valley/American/Capitalist economy/culture. Granted, even most of the
survivors had to make serious cutbacks and some may still not pull
through, but I wonder how much realling interesting technology was lost
or set back significantly? Not much is my guess.
> In the meantime, non-self programming software hasn't
> received any significant advances in programmer tools and
> abilities in over a decade. I don't know how we are to develop
> good augmentation wares without several serious advances in
> programming practice, human-computer interaction and other areas
> not exactly accelerating at this time.
I guess one can quibble over what constitutes a significant advance or
claim that nothing's new under the sun, but what about (in no particular
order)
* safer programming (the collection of stuff Java and C# kind of get
right)
* object oriented programming
* application servers/frameworks
* scripting languages
* ubiquitous networking and database connectivity
* semi-literate programming
* "extreme programming" practicies
* the web! (xml/http/uri/...)
* easy internationalization and accessibility
I consider adoption and robust implementation highly relevant, even if
the ideas are decades old. None of the above have run their course
IMO. I look forward to another decade of improvements (though with a
half-empty perspective, one may be looking at a decade of stagnation)
and perhaps a few surprises. Capability security should be really
important. Aspect Oriented Programming looks like a nice adjunct to
existing programming methods. For the sake of list continuity or
something, Intentional Programming looked interesting to me a couple
years ago (mentioned by Billy Brown I think) though I don't think I
fully grokked it. Appears that the project is no more at Microsoft
Research.
>From my (limited, not all that experienced) perspective, the software
stack is getting higher level every year, which frees brilliant people
to work on really hard problems (building a seed AI, eventually) instead
of reinventing lower layers that have been implemented and
re-implemented by previous (internet time) generations. Also lets bozos
like me crank out boring programs faster. :)
Mike Linksvayer
http://gondwanaland.com/ml/
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