6 ms·
Ask HN: What’s the most important software in the world?
Currently and in the future
- uberman 8y agoWhatever "Operations Plan 8044" is supported by / implemented in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_of_the_United_States#Command_and_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_of_the_United_...
- rolph 8y agohighly classified stuff, but in its day likely a FORTRAN implementation, the OPLAN is not simply a computer program but is a heuristic of human operations that is modified depending on current intelligence briefs, and asset deployment and distribution. The ARPANET [DARPANET] was a major part of this.
- gtvwill 8y ago*nix based operating systems.
- scarface74 8y agoI’m not by any means an Android fan, but I have to admit that AOSP has done more to make computing accessible to almost everyone in the world than any other platform.
- type0 8y agoFor whom?
- kristianp 8y agoThe relational database.
- rolph 8y agoin my opinion the most important software is actually firmware, that means the BIOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS the successor UEFI im not so happy about but it can be tamed, it seems to be a binary blob thin edge of wedged between the firmware and the OS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_In...
- clanrebornsx 8y agoFacebook and gmail and Google search are the most important softwares.
- GiorgioG 8y agoThe one running my son’s insulin pump.
- sebst 8y agoYou're making the point here. It's the software that makes our lives significantly better, which is the most important one. However, as software is everywhere, the original question is the same thing as "what physical invention" is the most important one? From one standpoint this could be something like the wheel or electrical light, i.e. Bios, compiler or a network stack in the software world. Or, something way more personal, like health care related software for the loved ones or some more profane stuff. To make the question even less tangible, software in general can be replaced more easily than physical things, most of the time.
- Adamantcheese 8y agoAny network protocol implementation.
- quickthrower2 8y agoI’d go for software running power stations. Without power we’re fucked.
- heyjudy 8y agoThe Perl on nuclear warheads that aren't exploding. http://www.foo.be/docs/tpj/issues/vol2_1/tpj0201-0004.html http://www.foo.be/docs/tpj/issues/vol2_1/tpj0201-0004.html
- AxisOfEval 8y agoLeaving highly classified and for whom kinda questions aside, I must say it's the software that the good guys SWIFT (http://swift.com http://swift.com) use to run the global financial network. The SWIFT Network has no real alternatives and entire countries teeter towards bankruptcies when they're banned from using it. The last time the US banned Iran, Iran reportedly lost $100M; everyday! [Edit] Spellings and URL
- jangid 8y agoProbably that is why big economies are after crypto networks. Ripple is a close alternative for the SWIFT network.
- tomjen3 8y agoIt sounds like software that important shouldn't be something that any particular country should be in control of (as much as I like to stop the leadership of Iran).
- LiamPa 8y agoYou have obviously never tried to decipher a swift message or been forced to read the ‘handbook’
- JunaidBhai 8y agoBios
- srirangr 8y agoThe most important software I've seen is Excel. Almost every new application I see is trying to replace excel in some domain or the other.
- thiago_fm 8y ago+1. And I think most of the software that try to replace it somehow fails.
- cimmanom 8y agoWhatever sewage is running electronic voting machines and vote tabulators.
- lexda15 8y agoOnline Banking
- tomjen3 8y agoThe TCP/IP stack in the BSD everybody copied from around the time win 95 was being developed.
- notomorrow 8y agoGIT
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoWeb servers.
- probinso 8y agoIn the future ,General task automation and artificial common sense
- malux85 8y agoThe Linux kernel
- sloaken 8y agoI had a teach who once was reviewing the history of computing. She explained how time sharing was invented in the 1960s. The ability for a computer to do more than one thing at a time, was a HUGE improvement.