On Tue, May 8, 2018 at 11:31 AM, Steve Johnson <scj@yaccman.com> wrote:

Well, as I look to the future I see the whole approach we have to software running into a dead end. In fact, I think software is holding us back.

You might be right here, but where we disagree I think is economics. The problem is that we can not afford to replace SW. As I like to point out, Fortran still pays my salary -- why because all the data and codes that use that data written since the late 1950s.

Its just worse in the commercial side. Word and Lookout/Exchange sucks - but people use them and they are not going away. Think about the LISP Machine or the CM1 - lots of people though they were 'better' for some concept of goodness. But they failed in the end.

...

Starting about 2000, this changed. Hardware was no longer offering increased speed. But what it was offering was massive parallelism. The response was to cling to the one instruction at a time model, introducing multicore and its attendant hardware complexity to try to cling to the previous model of programming. The hardware to make this possible is expensive and does not scale.

I agree but ... IMO its going to take a real Christensen disruption with a new customer base. I just don't see that happening any time soon. Without a new customer base to support the new technology, the economics of the keeping the old running has and will continue to go forward.

And it's exciting...

I agree and I'm a fan and cheering from the sidelines .... but I'm skeptical of success because the economics don't play to success..