Ask HN: Any hacks/ideas to identify tech trends from the bottom up?
5 comments
Turn off your "do other people like this?" filter. Also turn off your "is this like other stuff I've used before in the past?" filter. Go try out the technologies yourself. The stuff you like now is the stuff other people will like in a couple years.
Reminds me of when I first heard about bitcoin 2009 ish. I thought it was a super cool idea but ... hey other people ain't into it so it can't be that hot. Had I turned off that sheep filter I would have probably got more into it more.
And by the same token programming languages that prove correctness and 'make illegal state un-representable' will be a growing trend in the future.
The shear number of programming languages will reach a pinnacle to where we give up on Haskell vs. Java and just say: here are some levers - you set them up and we'll spit you out a programming language and platform that meets your needs.
The shear number of programming languages will reach a pinnacle to where we give up on Haskell vs. Java and just say: here are some levers - you set them up and we'll spit you out a programming language and platform that meets your needs.
Careful - applying the "do I like it myself?" principle implies that you're doing the same tasks as the people who will make the decisions in the future.
I like Haskell etc. a lot, but I've found that in the very early stages of the project, it's quite important to allow incorrect code and illegal state because you don't know what "correct" means yet. New products are almost always built by making sure the happy path works and not worrying about anything else, because if you worry about anything else, it will take you that much longer to bring something to market.
Languages that prove correctness have the unfortunate position of being most useful once the project has already grown big. At that point, the programming language used has already been decided, and it's usually whatever was popular for toy projects 10 years ago.
I do think we'll see more languages that take the "immutable by default" route, but allow escape hatches for when you really need to break the rules. Even when prototyping, most of your data structures can be immutable, you just occasionally need to monkey-patch something or alter some state from inside a loop.
I like Haskell etc. a lot, but I've found that in the very early stages of the project, it's quite important to allow incorrect code and illegal state because you don't know what "correct" means yet. New products are almost always built by making sure the happy path works and not worrying about anything else, because if you worry about anything else, it will take you that much longer to bring something to market.
Languages that prove correctness have the unfortunate position of being most useful once the project has already grown big. At that point, the programming language used has already been decided, and it's usually whatever was popular for toy projects 10 years ago.
I do think we'll see more languages that take the "immutable by default" route, but allow escape hatches for when you really need to break the rules. Even when prototyping, most of your data structures can be immutable, you just occasionally need to monkey-patch something or alter some state from inside a loop.
Yes I agree Haskell is not a panacea. I see the future as having a lot of control over your language. You won't say I use Haskell or I use Python. You'd say "I program" and use a custom language to suit your needs.
I see what you are getting at with Haskell, but it's so easy to refactor. Are you taking that into account while you pose that question to yourself?
[deleted]
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -- Alan Kay
Have you tried Google Trends? > http://smallbusinessbc.ca/article/how-use-google-trends-perf...
Probably scraping websites like Hacker News or Github on a daily basis and see what new things are surfacing. For example, what are the projects on Github that are getting new followers faster, or what words appear often on the front page of Hacker News now, but not six months ago?
This. And it would be cooler if you used GitHub as a dictionary of keywords while the trends being checked on Twitter.