5 ms·

I truly believe some flavour of "Javascript Classic" (some future state of JS before some big shift in syntax/mass migration to something else), C and x86 instr

I truly believe some flavour of "Javascript Classic" (some future state of JS before some big shift in syntax/mass migration to something else), C and x86 instructions will follow humanity for the rest of time. There will be javascript somewhere aboard the interstellar spaceships of the future, and we will still complain about it.

xg15 2y ago
Yeah, starting to believe the hacking scene in the Matrix where the machine city was still running on IPv4 wasn't a blunder but foresight. There will also be someone playing Tetris, Doom and Final Fantasy VI on their neural interface, long after all modern games have been lost to time (and DRM).
elzbardico 2y ago
Well, even Fortran is still around us in some lapack code in numpy and in a lot of the stuff behing scipy, so, a lot closer than a lot of people can imagine. Basically a lot of AI depends on a bunch of absurdly optimized numeric libraries writen in Fortran. Fortran is well into the way at becoming a centenarian programing language at 74 years of age.
pavel_lishin 2y ago
My grandchildren will live to see Vernor Vinge's programmer-archeologists troubleshooting PHP issues on the Wordpress install responsible for life-support around Alpha Centauri.
- kwertyoowiyop 2y ago
  Just bobble some programmers now.
peutetre 2y ago
JavaScript will be killed off by WebAssembly. Zombie JavaScript will be reduced to being glue code and then not even that.
- yen223 2y ago
  JavaScript will be killed off by webassembly for about 5 years now
  - peutetre 2y ago
    The difference lately is the number of tools that are now in place for WebAssembly development and the new extensions to WebAssembly (WasmGC, Memory64, etc.). Despite 28 years of effort at optimization, JavaScript is outperformed by WebAssembly. There's not much coming back from that: https://jordaneldredge.com/blog/speeding-up-winamps-music-visualizer-with-webassembly/ https://jordaneldredge.com/blog/speeding-up-winamps-music-vi... https://www.amazon.science/blog/how-prime-video-updates-its-app-for-more-than-8-000-device-types https://www.amazon.science/blog/how-prime-video-updates-its-... https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc
    - liontwist 2y ago
      ?? JavaScript was outperformed by every language since it was introduced. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what people put in their web pages.
      - peutetre 2y ago
        But now JavaScript is no longer the privileged language in the browser. With WebAssembly every language runs in the browser and runs better.
        liontwist 2y ago
        And what will prove that is adoption. As others have said, that has been “just around the corner” for years.
    - yoelhacks 2y ago
      Javascript is outperformed by WebAssembly in the sense that it runs faster. A lot of things that bring a lot of value to a lot of people are still much, much faster to build via the JS / TS ecosystem. It absolutely makes sense that calculation-heavy workloads will be ported to WASM, but there's a lot more to building an app.
yen223 2y ago
I sometimes think about one of the Star Trek episodes where the ship was getting attacked by a "SQL injection", and I think that's pretty realistic
mst 2y ago
I think it was 'A Deepness In The Sky' that posited so many layers of legacy underlying the starship control systems of the era that one of the most crucial positions on a ship was that of 'Programmer-Archeologist.'
- wpm 2y ago
  That sounds great. Added to my list. I adore the idea of somewhere on the Star Trek Enterprise, underneath the isolinear chips, the EPS conduits, the warp containment field control mechanisms, somewhere, if you dig far enough, override enough, you can get an LCARS screen that is all black, with a small `$` in the upper left and a blinking text cursor, waiting for a command.
- jeffrallen 2y ago
  I am already a programmer archeologist, and it's one of the most rewarding parts of my job. Though my most recent project is regrettably well written and maintained. :)
  - banku_brougham 2y ago
    im going to try and have this attitude

xg15 2y ago

Yeah, starting to believe the hacking scene in the Matrix where the machine city was still running on IPv4 wasn't a blunder but foresight. There will also be someone playing Tetris, Doom and Final Fantasy VI on their neural interface, long after all modern games have been lost to time (and DRM).

elzbardico 2y ago

Well, even Fortran is still around us in some lapack code in numpy and in a lot of the stuff behing scipy, so, a lot closer than a lot of people can imagine. Basically a lot of AI depends on a bunch of absurdly optimized numeric libraries writen in Fortran. Fortran is well into the way at becoming a centenarian programing language at 74 years of age.

pavel_lishin 2y ago

My grandchildren will live to see Vernor Vinge's programmer-archeologists troubleshooting PHP issues on the Wordpress install responsible for life-support around Alpha Centauri.

kwertyoowiyop 2y ago
Just bobble some programmers now.

peutetre 2y ago

JavaScript will be killed off by WebAssembly. Zombie JavaScript will be reduced to being glue code and then not even that.

yen223 2y ago
JavaScript will be killed off by webassembly for about 5 years now
- peutetre 2y ago
  The difference lately is the number of tools that are now in place for WebAssembly development and the new extensions to WebAssembly (WasmGC, Memory64, etc.). Despite 28 years of effort at optimization, JavaScript is outperformed by WebAssembly. There's not much coming back from that: https://jordaneldredge.com/blog/speeding-up-winamps-music-visualizer-with-webassembly/ https://jordaneldredge.com/blog/speeding-up-winamps-music-vi... https://www.amazon.science/blog/how-prime-video-updates-its-app-for-more-than-8-000-device-types https://www.amazon.science/blog/how-prime-video-updates-its-... https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc
  - liontwist 2y ago
    ?? JavaScript was outperformed by every language since it was introduced. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what people put in their web pages.
    - peutetre 2y ago
      But now JavaScript is no longer the privileged language in the browser. With WebAssembly every language runs in the browser and runs better.
      - liontwist 2y ago
        And what will prove that is adoption. As others have said, that has been “just around the corner” for years.
  - yoelhacks 2y ago
    Javascript is outperformed by WebAssembly in the sense that it runs faster. A lot of things that bring a lot of value to a lot of people are still much, much faster to build via the JS / TS ecosystem. It absolutely makes sense that calculation-heavy workloads will be ported to WASM, but there's a lot more to building an app.

yen223 2y ago

I sometimes think about one of the Star Trek episodes where the ship was getting attacked by a "SQL injection", and I think that's pretty realistic

mst 2y ago

I think it was 'A Deepness In The Sky' that posited so many layers of legacy underlying the starship control systems of the era that one of the most crucial positions on a ship was that of 'Programmer-Archeologist.'

wpm 2y ago
That sounds great. Added to my list. I adore the idea of somewhere on the Star Trek Enterprise, underneath the isolinear chips, the EPS conduits, the warp containment field control mechanisms, somewhere, if you dig far enough, override enough, you can get an LCARS screen that is all black, with a small `$` in the upper left and a blinking text cursor, waiting for a command.
jeffrallen 2y ago
I am already a programmer archeologist, and it's one of the most rewarding parts of my job. Though my most recent project is regrettably well written and maintained. :)
- banku_brougham 2y ago
  im going to try and have this attitude