The Biggest Roadblocks To Information Technology Development

ZDOne writes "ZDNet UK has put together a list of some of the biggest obstacles preventing information technology from achieving its true potential, in terms of development and progress. Microsoft's stranglehold on the desktop makes the list, as does the chip-makers' obsession with speed. 'There is more to computing than processor speed -- a point which can be easily proven by comparing a two-year-old PC running Linux with a new PC buckling under the weight of Vista. Shrinking the manufacturing process to enable greater speed has proven essential, but it's running out of magic ... What about smarter ways of tagging data? The semantic web initiative runs along these sorts of lines, so where is the hardware-based equivalent?'"

Bullshit

[everphilski]

There is more to computing than processor speed

As someone who does scientific computing, I say bunk! My primary bottleneck is still the processor. FTA:

Too much R&D time and money goes into processor speed when other issues remain under-addressed. For example, could data not be handled a bit better? What about smarter ways of tagging data? The semantic web initiative runs along these sorts of lines, so where is the hardware-based equivalent?

Sure, tagging and controlling data is important, but far from difficult, and with well-written programs a good suite of visualization tools is relatively easy. Give me some speed, dammit! Why should I have to wait for my slot on the cluster when I could have the power right here under my desk?

 

Agreed

[Ultra64]

"It says click OK to continue... what should I do?"

This is the kind of question I get to deal with at work.

Two Different Uses of the Word

[StCredZero]

You're conflating two different uses of the word "pattern" from two different computer science/programming contexts and think this constitutes cleverness. BZZZZZT! Wrong! No cigar!

They're not even the same phrases. You're thinking of pattern recognition [wikipedia.org] and pattern matching [wikipedia.org]. Read the 2nd article. They are definitely not the same thing!

We need another RISC revolution, but in support of what we really need as programmers. That would be better support of VMs for high level languages. VMs in the sense of Xen will also be useful, but we are already making significant progress there.

Re:Horrible

[barzok]

QWERTY is a holdover from the early days of mechanical typewriters, meant to slow typists down. It was not designed to be "good" for modern use.

Re:Horrible

[ajs318]

QWERTY is a holdover from the early days of mechanical typewriters, meant to slow typists down.

That is a blatant lie. The QWERTY layout wasn't meant to slow typists down -- quite the opposite. It was meant to ensure you could type as fast as possible, by separating commonly-paired letters. In order to type a word, every type-bar had to move through the same place -- creating a potential for jamming up the machine if the next one arrives before the last one has left. The further apart any two type-bars were, the more likely the type-bar for the first letter would have fallen out of the way before the type-bar for the second letter moved into place.

Unfortunately, they mucked up. The word lists used to arrange the keys were all in the present tense, and so "e" ended up next to "d".