4 ms·
> This is as good as it gets: a 50 year old OS, 30 year old text editors, and 25 year old languages. Bullshit. No technology has ever been permanent. We’ve just
by Swizec 6y ago
> This is as good as it gets: a 50 year old OS, 30 year old text editors, and 25 year old languages. Bullshit. No technology has ever been permanent. We’ve just lost the will to improve.
We’re at the better horses stage of the cycle. What’s the next car?
- unnouinceput 6y agoCommercial quantum computer and true parallel programming languages.
- tsimionescu 6y agoQuantum computing is only likely to be an accelerator for a few specific kinds of problems. The bulk of programming (even the bulk of most quantum algorithms!) is still happening in classical computers.
- pfdietz 6y agoI'm not convinced quantum computers are going to accelerate anything.
- tsimionescu 6y agoProblems in the complexity class BQP are mathematically proven to be more efficient on a quantum computer than on a classical computer. You can still doubt that quantum computers are physically realizable. Perhaps the number of qubits needed for error correction will turn out to increase fundamentally faster than the number of useful qubits, or perhaps there is some other fundamental limit that we will hit. But the maths is clear: if it is at all possible to create a quantum computer, it will be faster for certain specific problems than a classical computer (in particular, it will be faster than a classical computer at simulating quantum phenomena).
- pfdietz 6y agoSince BQP is a subset of PSPACE, are you claiming that P != PSPACE has been proved?
- tsimionescu 6y agoOops, you're right, I misspoke when I claimed this was proven. I mixed up BQP with the recent quantum superiority demonstration, apologies. Still, it is strongly suspected that BQP != P. This was especially reinforced by the MIP* = RE result, as far as I understand from Scott Aaronson [0]. [0] https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4512#comment-1829033 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4512#comment-1829033
- pfdietz 6y agoI see your Scott Aaronson and raise you one Gil Kalai. https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2020/12/29/the-argument-against-quantum-computers-a-very-short-introduction/ https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2020/12/29/the-argument-again...
- Zac_ 6y agoIt is not all about the capacity of the software. If software has been around for a long time, people can gather experience about how to use it. Longstanding software in the hands of someone very familiar with it, will use it like a simple, comfortable, reliable tool. That has huge value to the individuals who use it. They know they are blind to potentially better products, but they no longer have the time to gather the experience and confidence in the new products.
- sovreign 6y agoContent addressable, immutable code? https://www.unisonweb.org https://www.unisonweb.org
- erichanson 6y agoPut everything in the database! Directories are dumb, the world is not a tree it's a graph. Files are dumb, they don't have constraints or decent metadata. Syntax is latent structure. Config files are just a featureless database. Stop it! Code wants to be data. (shameful self-plug: aquameta.org)
- veddox 6y agoI'm somewhat peeved by his "No technology has ever been permanent" statement. Compared to most human technologies, 25 years is not exactly what you'd call a grandfatherly age...