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I'm not looking for major breakthroughs in science and technology, though always welcome. I'd like some basic things: (1) desktop linux to be a thing, (2) AR/VR

I'm not looking for major breakthroughs in science and technology, though always welcome. I'd like some basic things: (1) desktop linux to be a thing, (2) AR/VR to be mainstream, (3) a unified app platform (web, mobiles) maybe Flutter. (+) One thing I'd like to see in my lifetime but perhaps won't is undoing so many years of 'have humans think like machines' programming languages replaced by functional or declarative for the mainstream.

sockaddr 5y ago
> (1) desktop linux to be a thing Reads this from firefox on a linux desktop I recently transitioned from macOS and yes it isn't as polished, but some areas are actually surprisingly better. And it feels nice knowing when I go try to fix a problem by making a PR or issues on something it's helping the ecosystem a little not just pissing away life and energy into the Apple forums or whatever.
vlod 5y ago
>desktop linux to be a thing, People at work joke that maybe "2022 will be the year of Linux on the desktops". I use Popos linux distribution (if you're interested on a Thinkpad x1 carbon) and my desktop is mostly the same as theirs on MacOS (maybe not as pretty). i.e. (vscode/vim, terminal, firefox/chrome). Docker is not a pita as it is on the Mac. I've been a mac user for a long time, until about a few years back when I took the plunge. I know people have this view that linux users spend endless amounts of time tweaking and getting simple things to work (like wifi/bluetooth). I certainly don't, maybe becz I'm using a Thinkpad. Dunno why people don't give it a shot.
- karmakaze 5y ago
  I still have a Linux desktop machine but it doesn't get used a whole lot. Last time I tried Xubuntu on a laptop it still had problems with HiDPI and battery life. What's holding me back now is that I've switched to using a custom keyboard mapping and only made macOS/Windows layouts for it. If I can source a hardware USB mapper that would work, otherwise I have to do it twice again for Linux console and graphical.
muzani 5y ago
There's a lot of abstraction needed for a unified app platform, as a lot of it is communication with hardware layers. It'll probably end up like Flutter at best. But there's a lot of code that people haven't wrote, and both mobile platforms are changing fast enough that there will continually be more code. To expect a solid unified platform is to expect no further changes on the native layers. Something like a new method for exif would still be quick to port over, but a change like scoped storage means older code would have to be rewritten. On top of that, there's a lot of undocumented behavior when you go deep enough, and the problem becomes squared with an abstraction layer. It's not impossible, but it's a variation of low code, with all the ups and down. I would like to see more declarative programming though. I think GPT-3's prompt engineering sets a good example of what could be. We're still thinking like machines, except machines will be thinking like children in the future.

sockaddr 5y ago

> (1) desktop linux to be a thing Reads this from firefox on a linux desktop I recently transitioned from macOS and yes it isn't as polished, but some areas are actually surprisingly better. And it feels nice knowing when I go try to fix a problem by making a PR or issues on something it's helping the ecosystem a little not just pissing away life and energy into the Apple forums or whatever.

vlod 5y ago

>desktop linux to be a thing, People at work joke that maybe "2022 will be the year of Linux on the desktops". I use Popos linux distribution (if you're interested on a Thinkpad x1 carbon) and my desktop is mostly the same as theirs on MacOS (maybe not as pretty). i.e. (vscode/vim, terminal, firefox/chrome). Docker is not a pita as it is on the Mac. I've been a mac user for a long time, until about a few years back when I took the plunge. I know people have this view that linux users spend endless amounts of time tweaking and getting simple things to work (like wifi/bluetooth). I certainly don't, maybe becz I'm using a Thinkpad. Dunno why people don't give it a shot.

karmakaze 5y ago
I still have a Linux desktop machine but it doesn't get used a whole lot. Last time I tried Xubuntu on a laptop it still had problems with HiDPI and battery life. What's holding me back now is that I've switched to using a custom keyboard mapping and only made macOS/Windows layouts for it. If I can source a hardware USB mapper that would work, otherwise I have to do it twice again for Linux console and graphical.

muzani 5y ago

There's a lot of abstraction needed for a unified app platform, as a lot of it is communication with hardware layers. It'll probably end up like Flutter at best. But there's a lot of code that people haven't wrote, and both mobile platforms are changing fast enough that there will continually be more code. To expect a solid unified platform is to expect no further changes on the native layers. Something like a new method for exif would still be quick to port over, but a change like scoped storage means older code would have to be rewritten. On top of that, there's a lot of undocumented behavior when you go deep enough, and the problem becomes squared with an abstraction layer. It's not impossible, but it's a variation of low code, with all the ups and down. I would like to see more declarative programming though. I think GPT-3's prompt engineering sets a good example of what could be. We're still thinking like machines, except machines will be thinking like children in the future.