这个问题来自于对过去50年左右计算领域各种进展的评论。

其他一些与会者请我把这个问题作为一个问题向整个论坛提出。

这里的基本思想不是抨击事物的现状,而是试图理解提出基本新思想和原则的过程。

我认为我们在大多数计算领域都需要真正的新想法,我想知道最近已经完成的任何重要而有力的想法。如果我们真的找不到他们,那么我们应该问“为什么?”和“我们应该做什么?”


当前回答

更好的用户界面。

今天的用户界面仍然很糟糕。我指的不是小的方面,而是大的、基本的方面。我不禁注意到,即使是最好的程序也仍然有一些接口,这些接口要么极其复杂,要么需要以其他方式进行大量的抽象思考,而且无法达到传统的非软件工具的易用性。

诚然,这是由于软件可以比传统工具做更多的事情。但这不是接受现状的理由。此外,大多数软件都做得不好。

In general, applications still lack a certain “just works” feeling are too much oriented by what can be done, rather than what should be done. One point that has been raised time and again, and that is still not solved, is the point of saving. Applications crash, destroying hours of work. I have the habit of pressing Ctrl+S every few seconds (of course, this no longer works in web applications). Why do I have to do this? It's mind-numbingly stupid. This is clearly a task for automation. Of course, the application also has to save a diff for every modification I make (basically an infinite undo list) in case I make an error.

解决这个问题其实并不难。在每个应用程序中都很难实现它,因为没有好的API可以做到这一点。编程工具和库必须显著改进,才能在所有平台和程序上轻松实现这些工作,适用于所有具有任意备份存储且不需要用户交互的文件格式。但在我们最终开始编写“好的”应用程序而不仅仅是足够的应用程序之前,这是必要的一步。

I believe that Apple currently approximates the “just works” feeling best in some regards. Take for example their newest version of iPhoto which features a face recognition that automatically groups photos by people appearing in them. That is a classical task that the user does not want to do manually and doesn't understand why the computer doesn't do it automatically. And even iPhoto is still a very long way from a good UI, since said feature still requires ultimate confirmation by the user (for each photo!), since the face recognition engine isn't perfect.

其他回答

设计模式使计算机科学更接近计算机工程。 GPS和互联网地址查找基于位置的交互。 面向服务的体系结构。

自由软件基金会(成立于1985年)

即使你不是他们哲学的全心全意的支持者,他们一直在推动的理念,自由软件,开源已经对软件行业和一般内容产生了惊人的影响(例如维基百科)。

Damas-Milner type inference (often called Hindley-Milner type inference) was published in 1983 and has been the basis of every sophisticated static type system since. It was a genuinely new idea in programming languages (admitted based on ideas published in the 1970s, but not made practical until after 1980). In terms of importance I put it up with Self and the techniques used to implement Self; in terms of influence it has no peer. (The rest of the OO world is still doing variations on Smalltalk or Simula.)

类型推断的变化仍在上演;我最喜欢的变体是Wadler和Blott的解决重载的类型类机制,后来发现它为类型级别的编程提供了非常强大的机制。这个故事的结局还在书写中。

让我们看看,连接机器(大规模并行)就是其中之一。

不管怎样,这整个问题似乎是艾伦·凯的自大狂,因为他发明了一切。

这是一个很难回答的问题,因为在那之后,除了硬件的改进之外,几乎没有什么东西是具有重大积极意义的发明。虽然在20世纪80年代之前,有许多重大的发明只影响人们,但现在,因为它们在当时是不可行的。

见鬼。血统