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Programming Languages For Coding the Physical World

Posted by yaelk on from the programming-the-world dept.

snydeq writes: Stuffing bits in databases is boring, InfoWorld's Peter Wayner writes, so why not program everything around you? "The barrier between bits and atoms is disappearing, with programmers no longer confined to the virtual realm, in part thanks to the Internet of things becoming more real. Now we can do more than write ones and zeros to a disk: We can actually write code that tells a machine how to extrude, cut, bend, or morph atoms," Wayner writes in a survey of programming languages. "Rapidly developing domains such as autonomous cars, smart homes, intelligent office spaces, and mass customization require programmers to be savvy about how changes in data structures can lead to changes in objects. If the term "object-oriented programming" weren't already taken, it would be perfect."

3 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. What? by Verdatum · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've been a software engineer for 10 years now, and I also do machining as a hobby. I have no idea what I just read. What the Hell was the point of that article? Here are some languages bundled into an article because....reasons?

  2. Re:Ugh by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Agreed. A "wouldn't it be nice if the whole world had ponies" story without the ponies.

    --
    That is all.
  3. There's a certain audience for this type of post by FireballX301 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've always maintained definitions of the 'enthusiast' and the 'professional' when it comes to sufficiently technical fields. The enthusiast reads some media briefs, becomes enamored with some tech, wanders into his imagination in order to describe what the tech is actually capable of, then writes articles like this talking about how awesome their tech is and what it can do, while sitting in a coffeehouse waiting for their freelancer's paycheck to clear. These articles spawn another generation of 'enthusiasts', and the enthusiasts swirl around each other in a whirlpool of 'factoids' and buzzwords while other people try to extract money from them with silly books and scam kickstarters

    The professional in the field has an actual job and deliverables and has no time for any of the aforementioned nonsense. New professionals are created when intelligent people read those articles and goes 'the fuck is this shit', then does actual technical research.

    I used to blame Kurzweil for a lot of this but it goes back much further in history.