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
“美国人没有过去，也没有未来，他们生活在一个延伸的现在。”这描述了计算的状态。我们生活在80年代一直延续到21世纪。唯一改变的是尺寸。Alan Kay
来源: Alan Kay:计算机科学是一种矛盾修饰法吗?
其他回答
我认为没有什么重要的东西被发明出来。但自80年代以来，人们对软件的看法发生了很大变化。那时有更多的理论家参与其中，现在你在一个程序员论坛上问这个问题。
当时的大多数想法都没有得到实施，或者即使实施了，它们也没有任何真正的重要性，因为当时的软件行业还不存在，市场营销、人力资源、开发阶段或alpha版本也不存在:)。
Another reason for this lack of inventions is the fact that most people use Windows:) dont get me wrong, i do hate M$, but look at it this way: you have a perfectly working interface, with nothing new to add to it, maybe just some new colored buttons. Its also closed enough so you wont be able to to anything with it without breaking it. Thats why i prefer open apps, this way you get more "open" people, to whom yo can actually talk, ask then questions, propose new ideeas that actually gets implemented, or at least put on an open todo-list, thus you get some kind of "evolution". You dont really see anything new because you are stuck with the same basic interface "invented" lots of years ago... did anyone actually tried ION window-manager in a production environment? It has a new kind of interface, and actually lets you do things faster, event it it looks quirky
M$, Adobe..you name it,holds lots of patents so you wont be able to base your work on them, or derivatives(you also wont know what kind of undeveloped tehnologies they hold). Look at MP3 and GIF as examples( i belive that they are both free formats now, but they are also kinda dead..) MP3 is the 'king' of audio evend if there are few algorithms out there much better that it..but didnt get enough traction because they weren't pushed on the consumer market. The GIF... come on, 256 colors??? From this point of voew i'm curios how many people from this thread are working on something "open" that will get to be reused in some other projects, and how many on "closed", protected by NDA's projects?
即使这听起来有点像“免费的威利”，但在80年代，软件是免费的，所有东西都有文档，所有硬件都更简单，更容易使用……同时也更加有限，所以人们并没有浪费时间去执行3d游戏或网页，而是致力于真正的算法。
飞行汽车和悬浮滑板。哦，等等，那些还没有被发明出来。但到2015年，我们必须拥有它们。否则《回到未来2》就是个弥天大谎!
除了硬件创新之外，我倾向于发现太阳底下几乎没有新的东西。大多数真正伟大的想法都可以追溯到冯·诺依曼和艾伦·图灵这样的人。
如今，许多被贴上“技术”标签的东西实际上只是某人编写的程序或库，或者是用新的隐喻、首字母缩写或品牌名称对旧思想进行翻新。
受保护的内存。在保护内存之前，如果你的程序犯了错误，你可以在任何地方开始执行代码——实际上总是挂起整个机器。没错，重启时间到了!
硬件成本低。我的第一台电脑在1978年花了500美元——这在当时是一笔巨款。降低成本让每个人的办公桌上都有了电脑。
MPI和PVM并行化。
