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?”
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
我们需要的是重组,而不是再造。
我们现在拥有所有我们需要的硬件和软件组件,在未来几年里做一些令人惊叹的事情。
我相信科学中有一种疾病,参与者总是试图发明一些新的东西来区别于别人。这与做一些编目或教授旧作品的混乱工作形成了鲜明对比。
建造“新”东西的人通常被认为比重用现有的和几乎古老的作品的人有更高的血统。(对于一个20岁的年轻人来说,Lisp的开发时间是他们生命的两倍还多。1958)
好的旧想法需要复活并广泛传播,我们需要停止试图建立企业或程序员运动,有效地践踏旧的作品和系统,在权力游戏中成为下一个新事物——事实上,大多数“新的闪亮”事物只是旧想法复活的方面。
其他回答
数码相机呢?
根据维基百科,第一个真正的数码相机出现在1988年,大众市场的数码相机在20世纪90年代末变得负担得起。
在人机交互中使用物理学提供了另一种可理解的隐喻。这与手势和触觉相结合,很可能会取代70年代发明的、从80年代中后期开始普遍使用的当前常见GUI隐喻。
1980年的计算能力还不足以让这成为可能。我相信游戏可能引领了这一方向。iPod Touch/iPhone中的列表滚动交互便是一个很好的例子。交互机制依赖于动量和摩擦如何在现实世界中工作的直觉,以提供滚动项目列表的简单方法,而可用性依赖于导致滚动的物理手势。
回答“为什么新思想会消亡”和“如何应对”这两个问题?
I suspect a lot of the lack of progress is due to the massive influx of capital and entrenched wealth in the industry. Sounds counterintuitive, but I think it's become conventional wisdom that any new idea gets one shot; if it doesn't make it at the first try, it can't come back. It gets bought by someone with entrenched interests, or just FAILs, and the energy is gone. A couple examples are tablet computers, and integrated office software. The Newton and several others had real potential, but ended up (through competitive attrition and bad judgment) squandering their birthrights, killing whole categories. (I was especially fond of Ashton Tate's Framework; but I'm still stuck with Word and Excel).
怎么办呢?首先想到的是Wm。莎士比亚的建议:“让我们杀了所有的律师。”但恐怕他们现在装备太精良了。实际上,我认为最好的选择是找到某种开源计划。它们似乎比其他选择更好地保持可访问性和增量改进。但是这个行业已经变得足够大了,所以某种有机的合作机制是必要的。
I also think that there's a dynamic that says that the entrenched interests (especially platforms) require a substantial amount of change - churn - to justify continuing revenue streams; and this absorbs a lot of creative energy that could have been spent in better ways. Look how much time we spend treading water with the newest iteration from Microsoft or Sun or Linux or Firefox, making changes to systems that for the most part work fine already. It's not because they are evil, it's just built into the industry. There's no such thing as Stable Equilibrium; all the feedback mechanisms are positive, favoring change over stability. (Did you ever see a feature withdrawn, or a change retracted?)
关于SO的另一个讨论线索是臭鼬工厂综合症(参考:Geoffrey Moore):在大型组织中,真正的创新几乎总是(90%以上)出现在自发出现的未经授权的项目中,这些项目完全由个人或小团队的主动性推动(通常会受到正式的管理等级的反对)。所以:质疑权威,反抗体制。
几乎是现代3D计算机图形学中所有重要的东西。射线追踪(在计算图形意义上)是从Whitted 1980年的论文开始的。行军立方体('87)是从3D数据中提取等值面的标准方法。
The mouse - There have been posts about human interaction. To me, the mouse was the gateway to human interaction. Without it, we'd still be typing and not clicking in dragging, even with our fingers. GUI - Complimented the mouse perfectly. I work in an environment where an as400 is the backend of one of our major apps. Yeah.. Interesting stuff but it just reminds me of the screens 'Bill Gates' is working in in the movie 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' even though that's not what it was. To me, 1 and 2 are the reason anybody, including grandpas and grandmas can use a computer. Excel / spreadsheets - Someone mentioned this before but it's work mentioning again. It's so user friendly and is a great entry point for non-technical users to try their hand at simple programming concepts when performing calculations on cells. Granted it came out before 1980, but the versions post 1980 are when the technology in spreadsheets evolved. Internet (of course) - Not sure how people wrote code without it! Don't flame me for repeating because this belongs on every list. INTELLISENSE - LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!!!