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Will The Death of the PC Bring 'An End To Openness'? (infoworld.com)

Slashdot reader snydeq shared "11 Predictions For the Future of Programming" by InfoWorld's contributing editor -- and one prediction was particularly dire: The passing of the PC isn't only the slow death of a particular form factor. It;s the dying of a particularly open and welcoming marketplace... Consoles are tightly locked down. No one gets into that marketplace without an investment of capital. The app stores are a bit more open, but they're still walled gardens that limit what we can do. Sure, they are still open to programmers who jump through the right hoops but anyone who makes a false move can be tossed...

For now, most of the people reading this probably have a decent desktop that can compile and run code, but that's slowly changing. Fewer people have the opportunity to write code and share it. For all of the talk about the need to teach the next generation to program, there are fewer practical vectors for open code to be distributed.

5 of 501 comments (clear)

  1. False premise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The PC isn't dying. Not at all. Despite tablets and mobile devices, there's a lot of work that can't easily be done on them. There are lots of jobs that still require or are much easier when done on a PC. This question is built upon a premise that is false. As long as there's work that requires a PC, and there will be for the foreseeable future, the PC sure isn't going to die.

    1. Re:False premise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm a Graphic designer. Work is only increasing, who do you think makes all the GFX for the console's/tablet's? a tablet just isn't powerful enough yet to design on, nor give up the screen real estate of a pc ( I work with x3 50inch screens) I work in an office with other's who code, I dont see them switching either, never see a console you can code on or a tablet suitable.

      Maybe one day the consumer base will switch but those of us use that build for a living Pc's wont be going away anytime soon.

    2. Re: False premise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well maybe for your candy crush saga simulation. Try stuffing 10+ GB of data and 64 GB+ ram to run a two week simulation under windows 10 home and get back to me how that went.

      PC is just going back to being a workstation, and tablets are the new calculators.

    3. Re: False premise by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      or do what us professionals do. Refuse to use windows 10. Hell most of the engineering computers are still running 7 because it is massively more stable than 10.

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    4. Re: False premise by slazzy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Switch to Linux.

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