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David Hilbert published a list of 23 open problems in mathematics near the turn of the 20th century, and they served to goad the mathematics community into acti

David Hilbert published a list of 23 open problems in mathematics near the turn of the 20th century, and they served to goad the mathematics community into action for the next 75 years at least (some are still unsolved, but most were solved). Saying "this is a problem that should be solved" might betray a lack of knowledge of an existing solution, but hand-waving such an assertion away and saying "he can't back up his opinion" isn't helpful. If he's wrong, anyone can show why by demonstrating a correct solution to the problem - and then we'll all learn something.

theamk 5y ago
That person is no David Hilbert. As multiple comments says, many of the problems he talks about are already solved. And some of them were solved in the past and solutions abandoned. If you want to learn something, you will be much better off starting from a post which does not ignore existing state of the field.
- TimTheTinker 5y ago
  I'm mostly interested in this post because the contrast he draws between AWS and z/OS deeply resonates with me. What if someone built an OS to deal with cloud-scale problems at the ground level - in the kernel? This isn't to say the likes of S3 or DynamoDB should be implemented in kernel space (far from it). But the mishmash of services AWS does offer seems to be more about solving cloud-scale problems without implementing an OS, while creating a lot of DevOps jobs and a ton of vendor lock-in. At this point, AWS reminds me a lot of Windows Server: lots of UI, object-heavy scripting, a huge suite of expensive vendor-specific products, and a sheer inelegance about how the whole thing is built. I also see a lot of personality similarities between Windows admins in corporate IT of the 2000s and today's AWS DevOps professionals. Linux finally took down Windows Server because it had superior qualities as a development OS and was cheaper to run on server hardware. It also had a long history of people just building cool stuff on it... I have no idea what innovation will finally take down AWS, but perhaps mainframe OS's are a promising trail to go down (if infrastructure-as-code could be applied).
  - theamk 5y ago
    AWS does not have to be "lots of UI" and "Windows admins" -- Terraform, CloudFormation, and other infra-as-code solution are totally a thing, and bring modern, UI-less practices to to infrastructure services. If you are in the company which has corporate culture of "let's use AWS todaly like we used Windows 20 years ago" it may seem that the whole world is like that.. but it is not, there are plenty of other companies with different cultures! Re "OS to deal with cloud-scale problems at the ground level - in the kernel" -- I cannot make sense of that. Why on earth would it matter which OS do services use? For all that I care, Amazon could rewrite DynamoDB using AmigaOS and I would not even notice. It is all the same HTTP calls -- and this is one of the good things about the system. People can use AWS services from windows, linux, mac, mobile, even things like FreeRTOS, using any programming language they like. I guess you can create one more OS which is designed with AWS use in mind, but I doubt it will be a big game changer.
  - bawolff 5y ago
    Well that might be an interesting research project, AWS (especially at the beginning) is not the right party to do that. AWS's success was because it was a drop-in replacement for existing linux servers with easier management. I do agree this is one of the more interesting ideas in the post. But its also the least satisfying because its so vauge. "Imagine AWS but less shitty and more mainfrane like" is beyond vauge.
bawolff 5y ago
David hilbert's list is like the opposite of this list. It was a list of pretty fundamental problems with huge implications. The author of this list specificly states that they are problems that should be easy to work on. That's very different. Most of the ideas are ideas that have been done in the past. Some are just bad ideas, others just didn't catch on, perhaps due to chance or fashion. None of them really have compelling stories behind them. There's millions of things in the world that could be solved. A list of some subset is boring. The "Why" is the interesting part.

theamk 5y ago

That person is no David Hilbert. As multiple comments says, many of the problems he talks about are already solved. And some of them were solved in the past and solutions abandoned. If you want to learn something, you will be much better off starting from a post which does not ignore existing state of the field.

TimTheTinker 5y ago
I'm mostly interested in this post because the contrast he draws between AWS and z/OS deeply resonates with me. What if someone built an OS to deal with cloud-scale problems at the ground level - in the kernel? This isn't to say the likes of S3 or DynamoDB should be implemented in kernel space (far from it). But the mishmash of services AWS does offer seems to be more about solving cloud-scale problems without implementing an OS, while creating a lot of DevOps jobs and a ton of vendor lock-in. At this point, AWS reminds me a lot of Windows Server: lots of UI, object-heavy scripting, a huge suite of expensive vendor-specific products, and a sheer inelegance about how the whole thing is built. I also see a lot of personality similarities between Windows admins in corporate IT of the 2000s and today's AWS DevOps professionals. Linux finally took down Windows Server because it had superior qualities as a development OS and was cheaper to run on server hardware. It also had a long history of people just building cool stuff on it... I have no idea what innovation will finally take down AWS, but perhaps mainframe OS's are a promising trail to go down (if infrastructure-as-code could be applied).
- theamk 5y ago
  AWS does not have to be "lots of UI" and "Windows admins" -- Terraform, CloudFormation, and other infra-as-code solution are totally a thing, and bring modern, UI-less practices to to infrastructure services. If you are in the company which has corporate culture of "let's use AWS todaly like we used Windows 20 years ago" it may seem that the whole world is like that.. but it is not, there are plenty of other companies with different cultures! Re "OS to deal with cloud-scale problems at the ground level - in the kernel" -- I cannot make sense of that. Why on earth would it matter which OS do services use? For all that I care, Amazon could rewrite DynamoDB using AmigaOS and I would not even notice. It is all the same HTTP calls -- and this is one of the good things about the system. People can use AWS services from windows, linux, mac, mobile, even things like FreeRTOS, using any programming language they like. I guess you can create one more OS which is designed with AWS use in mind, but I doubt it will be a big game changer.
- bawolff 5y ago
  Well that might be an interesting research project, AWS (especially at the beginning) is not the right party to do that. AWS's success was because it was a drop-in replacement for existing linux servers with easier management. I do agree this is one of the more interesting ideas in the post. But its also the least satisfying because its so vauge. "Imagine AWS but less shitty and more mainfrane like" is beyond vauge.

bawolff 5y ago

David hilbert's list is like the opposite of this list. It was a list of pretty fundamental problems with huge implications. The author of this list specificly states that they are problems that should be easy to work on. That's very different. Most of the ideas are ideas that have been done in the past. Some are just bad ideas, others just didn't catch on, perhaps due to chance or fashion. None of them really have compelling stories behind them. There's millions of things in the world that could be solved. A list of some subset is boring. The "Why" is the interesting part.