Re: [THE FUTURE & CAREERS] Request for Advice

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Tue Jun 08 1999 - 14:34:52 MDT


A Davidson wrote:
>
> For specifics, I would pay attention to Java, Networking, Platform
> Neutrality, and maybe even AI (although no telling when AI will come of
> age), and make sure you are good at writing multi-threaded software because
> undoubtedly the future is in parallel.

I definitely agree with the parallelism part - it may be worth studying
Linux or Perl or BeOS just to pick up the POSIX process idiom, if you
haven't already. "One processor per person is not enough!" I suspect
that the next decade may see the breaking of Moore's Law classic due to
the requirement for gargantuan investments in manufacturing facilities,
but we'll still see an actual steepening of the performance/price curve
as most new systems come with two, then four, then eight processors.

Network programming will get even bigger, and Java is probably worth
knowing just for the RPC utilities. (Alternatively, pick your buzzword:
 CORBA, IDL, DCOM.) I'll also toss in a side vote for being comfortable
with XML.

AI will come knocking as a programmer's tool, and as substrate for multi-system-integration.

-- 
           sentience@pobox.com          Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
        http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
Running on BeOS           Typing in Dvorak          Programming with Patterns
Voting for Libertarians   Heading for Singularity   There Is A Better Way


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