14 ms·

I thought this was great. Very clever. Every frontier seems like it will be a frontier forever, until suddenly it isn't. Perhaps software is going to settle dow

by sgentle 15y ago

I thought this was great. Very clever. Every frontier seems like it will be a frontier forever, until suddenly it isn't. Perhaps software is going to settle down, start a family, and quit this cowboy nonsense. I don't think it'll happen by 2016, but I'd be hard pressed to say it won't happen ever. On the other hand, I like to think that maybe what we call entrepreneurship - the hacker ethos, audodidacticism, uppityness, get-shit-done, rationality, self-improvement, a weird mix of skills cut in a wide swath of "whatever I needed to learn at the time" - is actually an overarching set of tools and attitudes for turning your ideas and ambitions into real things. I can't imagine a world where it's not useful to do that anymore, even if the technology changes. It's true that the entrepreneur toolkit and the 9-5 megacorp toolkit aren't compatible, but every trend I can see points to people needing less and less to get more done. Economies of scale are technological: they shrink as the cost of production shrinks. Diseconomies of scale are sociological: as long as people are still the same, they'll stay the same. The advantages of being a large organisation might not always outweigh the disadvantages. What if it's not us that get left behind, but them?

guard-of-terra 15y ago
Software might never end. It will grow and grow and grow and grow until everything is software (or food). Your chair? Software. Your medicine pill? Software. Your glasses? Software. Your boots? Software. Walls of your house? Software. Your car? Software. The road you drive on? Software. I think we've not even yet tapped this. Not only we're not over "peak software" hump - it's not anywhere in sight, we're not even on the main exponential growth curve.
- capex 15y ago
  This feels like 'The Matrix'..
  - guard-of-terra 15y ago
    It would in fact be the opposite. Matrix was about emulating an old boring world in software for people living in jars. Here you will have the real thing. Real but no longer boring.
- grogs 15y ago
  Interesting ideas. I'd love to read some good sciene fiction novels based on this. It has the potential to be very relevant. 3D plastic printers are interesting, but too limited at the moment. 3D concrete printing has existed for a while though, that can definitely allow software to be/create the walls of your house. For medicine it's just a case of getting the simulation down. It'll also be interesting if robots get better. There's a lot of boring lab work in the natural sciences, if this can be automated and controlled by software... Your testing can be done by software... Genetic algorithms could be used to find cures to things. (Although using robots to physically test would presumably be much much slower and more expensive than a computer simulation. :( )
  - andrewflnr 15y ago
    I think by "your walls are software" he meant that your walls are controlled by software. Think heat management, view screens, maybe re-arranging them with a remote. But they're probably constructed with software, too.
    - kragen 15y ago
      I think he meant more than simply "your walls are controlled by software". Think of Utility Fog: your walls could be made of hundreds of little robots linked together, and can be reconfigured to a different shape in seconds under the control of software. The robots are sort of like three-dimensional pixels; the shape they assume at any given moment is just the shape that the currently running software gives them. Or perhaps dozens of little robots built the wall in the first place (by lashing together sticks and filling the space between with gravel, say) under software control, and can disassemble it and reassemble it in a different form under software control in an hour or two. In this case the sticks and stones are the pixels.
  - oillio 15y ago
    I recommend reading The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. It is classic cyber-punk about what happens socio-economically when damn near everything can be made by the 3D printer in the corner of your house, as long as you have the raw materials...and the software.
- ippisl 15y ago
  Most of them do already exist. Software based pill: There's already a pill the uses a sensor to measure it's place inside you're gut and release it medication in a specific location. There's also an in-body device that release medicine on regular intervals. Software based glasses: augmented reality glasses. They might be a growth area for apps. Programmable shoes: There are shoes with a programmable pattern and shoes for people with Alzheimer that transmit you're location. Programmable cars: cars are already programmable. they contain huge amounts of software. Programmable chairs: some dental chairs are already programmable. You have programs for different seat positions. My guess is, to create a new software employment boom, you need to create a new mass market programmable platform, that needs a lot of small volume applications and that developing for it is neither too complex(windows gui before VB) and neither too simple(excel).
  - guard-of-terra 15y ago
    When they finally arrive you'll see that no, they do not. They are just blossoms here and there, not a mesh of grass. Everything will not be simply programmable: it would be flexible, changing. Your wall would not be concrete with some software. It would be software with some concrete.
- ansgri 15y ago
  Moving into deeper fiction, we'll return to 'no software' again: inherent inefficiencies of digital hardware will force us to build analog systems, sort of pure hardware, that will be in fact software for the machine that runs this world.
dpkendal 15y ago
"The computer world is like an intellectual Wild West, in which you can shoot anyone you wish with your ideas, if you're willing to risk the consequences." http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-Computer/dp/1449389554/ref=pd_sim_b_5 http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-Computer/dp...
brandall10 15y ago
I absolutely agree. I've actually had this thought lingering in the back of my head as I'm in the midst of making the transition from primarily MS desktop/embedded C++/C# guy to open source stack web app guy. A few years back, in a review my supervisor put in a recommendation to go into management. I asked if I would be able to code anymore. Nope. I felt that was some subtle death trap - to lose my skills through non-use, and turned it down, 20% pay bump be damned. So now this transition, and began to think of it in the same light. But it doesn't work. It's been 13 years since I graduated, and I'm probably better at most CS'esque interview questions than anytime since then. Why? Because of what I did that led me to making this transition, essentially becoming unhappy in my job and looking for anwers, which started with a book called "The Passionate Programmer", which led to maybe 20-30 other books, completing some classics (such as K&R C), some incomplete (SICP, only halfway thru chapter 2), but in general exploring my craft in a way that my job did not require me to. I'm a much better programmer because of it, language be damned. So here's the question I have: Who is more likely to be aware of things such as CLRS, SICP, Hacker News, Stack Overflow? Who is more likely to understand (or even be aware of) languages like Clojure, Haskell, Prolog, Python, Ruby, etc? Who is more likely to give you more lucid answers to problems with big data, having even touched a NoSQL database and pontificate on the advantages/drawbacks of that vs. relational? Your typical enterprise dev, or your typical open source web dev? After talking about all this stuff to a team of 30+ engineers over the past few years, I'd have to put my $$ on and double down firmly on the latter. Of course, this is only an example of one engineer's experience. But I think there's a more meta issue at play here... it's more of the 501s vs. the non-501s, the latter being ones who well, just are more aware of what's actually going on in their respective industry. If the industry as a whole makes a tectonic shift toward algorithmically more difficult problems (ie. machine learning), I trust the open-source web devs will be on it and synthesize it faster than your typical enterprise guy will even be aware there is a need.
- tomrod 15y ago
  Well, I'm a math-y overtrained guy who just loves tech as a passionate hobby, and I found HN. I love the community here, and the new things I learn. I hope to never have to work where only people like me are employed. shudder.
- 15y ago
goodside 15y ago
"Every frontier seems like it will be a frontier forever, until suddenly it isn't. Perhaps software is going to settle down, start a family, and quit this cowboy nonsense." Can I quote you on this? Did you come up with this metaphor yourself, or is there someone else I should cite?
- sgentle 15y ago
  Sure! (Joke's on me, you already quoted it in the comment.) I can't lay any claim to the coder-as-cowboy metaphor in general - it's almost as old as actual cowboys - but I came up with it in the sense that I didn't rip off any one particular person's idea.
- ericb 15y ago
  Quote me: software IS the infinite frontier.
rst 15y ago
My read was that the boom times won't last forever. A comment below says this seems more like 2012 vs. 2007. Well, you could just as easily say 1998 vs. 2007 --- which was the last time than anyone with any degree of technical skill could have a cushy job for the asking. And there were booms and busts before that... and in slack times, it can be hard for anyone to get any kind of tech job, regardless of qualifications.

by sgentle 15y ago

guard-of-terra 15y ago

Software might never end. It will grow and grow and grow and grow until everything is software (or food). Your chair? Software. Your medicine pill? Software. Your glasses? Software. Your boots? Software. Walls of your house? Software. Your car? Software. The road you drive on? Software. I think we've not even yet tapped this. Not only we're not over "peak software" hump - it's not anywhere in sight, we're not even on the main exponential growth curve.

capex 15y ago
This feels like 'The Matrix'..
- guard-of-terra 15y ago
  It would in fact be the opposite. Matrix was about emulating an old boring world in software for people living in jars. Here you will have the real thing. Real but no longer boring.
grogs 15y ago
Interesting ideas. I'd love to read some good sciene fiction novels based on this. It has the potential to be very relevant. 3D plastic printers are interesting, but too limited at the moment. 3D concrete printing has existed for a while though, that can definitely allow software to be/create the walls of your house. For medicine it's just a case of getting the simulation down. It'll also be interesting if robots get better. There's a lot of boring lab work in the natural sciences, if this can be automated and controlled by software... Your testing can be done by software... Genetic algorithms could be used to find cures to things. (Although using robots to physically test would presumably be much much slower and more expensive than a computer simulation. :( )
- andrewflnr 15y ago
  I think by "your walls are software" he meant that your walls are controlled by software. Think heat management, view screens, maybe re-arranging them with a remote. But they're probably constructed with software, too.
  - kragen 15y ago
    I think he meant more than simply "your walls are controlled by software". Think of Utility Fog: your walls could be made of hundreds of little robots linked together, and can be reconfigured to a different shape in seconds under the control of software. The robots are sort of like three-dimensional pixels; the shape they assume at any given moment is just the shape that the currently running software gives them. Or perhaps dozens of little robots built the wall in the first place (by lashing together sticks and filling the space between with gravel, say) under software control, and can disassemble it and reassemble it in a different form under software control in an hour or two. In this case the sticks and stones are the pixels.
- oillio 15y ago
  I recommend reading The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. It is classic cyber-punk about what happens socio-economically when damn near everything can be made by the 3D printer in the corner of your house, as long as you have the raw materials...and the software.
ippisl 15y ago
Most of them do already exist. Software based pill: There's already a pill the uses a sensor to measure it's place inside you're gut and release it medication in a specific location. There's also an in-body device that release medicine on regular intervals. Software based glasses: augmented reality glasses. They might be a growth area for apps. Programmable shoes: There are shoes with a programmable pattern and shoes for people with Alzheimer that transmit you're location. Programmable cars: cars are already programmable. they contain huge amounts of software. Programmable chairs: some dental chairs are already programmable. You have programs for different seat positions. My guess is, to create a new software employment boom, you need to create a new mass market programmable platform, that needs a lot of small volume applications and that developing for it is neither too complex(windows gui before VB) and neither too simple(excel).
- guard-of-terra 15y ago
  When they finally arrive you'll see that no, they do not. They are just blossoms here and there, not a mesh of grass. Everything will not be simply programmable: it would be flexible, changing. Your wall would not be concrete with some software. It would be software with some concrete.
ansgri 15y ago
Moving into deeper fiction, we'll return to 'no software' again: inherent inefficiencies of digital hardware will force us to build analog systems, sort of pure hardware, that will be in fact software for the machine that runs this world.

dpkendal 15y ago

"The computer world is like an intellectual Wild West, in which you can shoot anyone you wish with your ideas, if you're willing to risk the consequences." http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-Computer/dp/1449389554/ref=pd_sim_b_5 http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-Computer/dp...

brandall10 15y ago

I absolutely agree. I've actually had this thought lingering in the back of my head as I'm in the midst of making the transition from primarily MS desktop/embedded C++/C# guy to open source stack web app guy. A few years back, in a review my supervisor put in a recommendation to go into management. I asked if I would be able to code anymore. Nope. I felt that was some subtle death trap - to lose my skills through non-use, and turned it down, 20% pay bump be damned. So now this transition, and began to think of it in the same light. But it doesn't work. It's been 13 years since I graduated, and I'm probably better at most CS'esque interview questions than anytime since then. Why? Because of what I did that led me to making this transition, essentially becoming unhappy in my job and looking for anwers, which started with a book called "The Passionate Programmer", which led to maybe 20-30 other books, completing some classics (such as K&R C), some incomplete (SICP, only halfway thru chapter 2), but in general exploring my craft in a way that my job did not require me to. I'm a much better programmer because of it, language be damned. So here's the question I have: Who is more likely to be aware of things such as CLRS, SICP, Hacker News, Stack Overflow? Who is more likely to understand (or even be aware of) languages like Clojure, Haskell, Prolog, Python, Ruby, etc? Who is more likely to give you more lucid answers to problems with big data, having even touched a NoSQL database and pontificate on the advantages/drawbacks of that vs. relational? Your typical enterprise dev, or your typical open source web dev? After talking about all this stuff to a team of 30+ engineers over the past few years, I'd have to put my $$ on and double down firmly on the latter. Of course, this is only an example of one engineer's experience. But I think there's a more meta issue at play here... it's more of the 501s vs. the non-501s, the latter being ones who well, just are more aware of what's actually going on in their respective industry. If the industry as a whole makes a tectonic shift toward algorithmically more difficult problems (ie. machine learning), I trust the open-source web devs will be on it and synthesize it faster than your typical enterprise guy will even be aware there is a need.

tomrod 15y ago
Well, I'm a math-y overtrained guy who just loves tech as a passionate hobby, and I found HN. I love the community here, and the new things I learn. I hope to never have to work where only people like me are employed. shudder.
15y ago

goodside 15y ago

"Every frontier seems like it will be a frontier forever, until suddenly it isn't. Perhaps software is going to settle down, start a family, and quit this cowboy nonsense." Can I quote you on this? Did you come up with this metaphor yourself, or is there someone else I should cite?

sgentle 15y ago
Sure! (Joke's on me, you already quoted it in the comment.) I can't lay any claim to the coder-as-cowboy metaphor in general - it's almost as old as actual cowboys - but I came up with it in the sense that I didn't rip off any one particular person's idea.
ericb 15y ago
Quote me: software IS the infinite frontier.

rst 15y ago

My read was that the boom times won't last forever. A comment below says this seems more like 2012 vs. 2007. Well, you could just as easily say 1998 vs. 2007 --- which was the last time than anyone with any degree of technical skill could have a cushy job for the asking. And there were booms and busts before that... and in slack times, it can be hard for anyone to get any kind of tech job, regardless of qualifications.