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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.
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.
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.
Back when I was more of an GNU zealot a decade ago I predicted open platforms would kill dumb phones as we saw the beginings of the smart phone starting.
Reason being is the PC won over the Mac because it was open. You did not have to go to the mighty Jobs and beg to be compliant and certified. Of course DOS the 8086 and most of the PC programs/DOS were absolute crap! But hey, coders loved it with it's limitations because of the low barriers of entry and DOS allowing assembly and low access to system calls.
Atari almost died in 1982 because they tried to control everything.
Boy, I was wrong :-( Android we all hoped would be a GNU OS with all rooted phones and terminals and hacks back in 2009 when we read about it. Nope. Is it too late and why won't Google be more open? Apple too. If they make barriers low and allow more with their phones more apps will come to Apple even if they lose out on iMac sales temporarily.
http://saveie6.com/
Even more need for platforms like the Raspberry Pi then!
For once, we will have PCs in future to write software. In addition we have open devices such as the raspberry pi , arduino and others.
The death knell of PC is but one example of the end result of wealthy companies who exist these days to be little more than patent whores, maintaining armies of legal teams ready to do battle to crush the very definition of competition, destroyed by their patented flavor of capitalism.
Future wars will see death by pen from a suit in a courtroom instead of death by rifle from a uniform on a battlefield. Political correctness is hardly of value when the end result is the same.
With cheap VPS providers, your local hardware only has to be powerful enough to run ssh and vnc or rdp. I would argue this is beneficial since it lowers the barrier of entry. Amazon Lightsail may not be the cheapest, but it lets you get started with your own server for $5/month. If I could connect a keyboard and monitor to my phone, I wouldn't even need a full blown computer.
the death of the PC has been a thing for a while...and yet it's not dead, not even close.
With general computing power and even decent graphics becoming ever cheaper and integrated even into some monitors at a fair cost the CapEx of a PC compared favourably with consoles.
Where a PC currently wins is versatility. I can Skype, Administer, Game, Code, Design, View and FB on one platform with ease and more importantly I can do this in almost any way I want on various software platform/s stacks.
Let's not forget I can typically expect to extend the life of the platform or change it's usability case with hardware upgrades.
No walled garden, console, smartphone or the like comes even close. all they do, if used at all, is complement my PC usage.
I'll not bother to list the amount of useful activities that are obviously inferior (to the layman) on other platforms.
Restriction to a person's freedom always results in that person seeking a way to circumvent or resist that restriction and learning to avoid restriction in the future...
Death of the PC they say? -tell uswhat genuinely better replacement is coming along and I'll agree...
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
And by the way, the article is wrong. The first PCs were not easy to code for. Sure, MSDOS 3.3 did include gwbasic, but for anything complex you had to license compiler software from somebody else. TurboC and the like were not free, you know. Or you could always code in assembly.
'Member GWbasic? 'Member shareware? 'Member BBS? I 'member. (South Park reference)
Seriously, this reads like an article by a 12 year old kid who only plays console games and thinks that means no one uses a pc anymore.
Even if it made a good case for "The death of the pc" the same component sockets and ports are all used on server platforms, so there's no present indication they are disappearing at all. Unless you live in the cave like bedroom of a 12 year old kid maybe.
One could argue that at some point of closedness, it's not really a PC any more. ...
If everything is TPMd, you can't install your own software, have to access everything from the app-store, and can't share files between apps locally,
Establish that the PC is dying in the first place.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I have an iPad that is not compatible with iOS 10. The browser is flaky, crashing frequently on some pretty simple websites, but no-one is allowed to give or sell me a browser that is stable. If I code an app and Apple doesn't like it, I can't sell it to anyone. Sounds pretty tightly locked down to me.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Being an engineer, I just cannot fathom what the author has been smoking to come up with that?
Computers are used for so much more than just programming. And I don't mean just 'publishing webpages'.
I can understand that someone who uses computers routinely just for reading email & facebook could have such a view.
But anyone who worked in any sort of industry instantly realizes the death of the PC [sic] is just not an option. Sure, the future might bring the death of the sub k€ PC, but that is not quite the same argument.
Desktops have a long lifecycle, they are not replaced as quickly as either laptops or tablets, so comparisons on market demand should take that into account. Even a 10 year old PC can handle a large majority of today's productivity tasks and even a larger majority of an average person's use tasks. Just adding RAM is often all that is needed to keep it going a few more years. The only thing pushing the spec envelope is >1080p video processing, which can be handled to some extent with a video card upgrade.
Open Source is not taught, it is encountered and embraced. Open Source programming is community. Those people who have oh so specialized cognitive abilities will naturally gravitate into the Open Source world. Not everyone belongs there and the idea of introducing this into curriculum is a waste of time when they should be learning something else. Of the Open Source programmers I know and have otherwise met, not a single one of them were taught about it in school. However, many got started in programming at a pre-teen age.
You can cite figures of slumping PC sales for sure. But what about the balancing figure that shows people aren't buying new desktops because the one they bought five-years ago is still blazing fast. Right now I am writing this on a Windows 10 tablet. It's a great device but the quad-core Cherry Trail and four gigs of ram are nothing to write home about... oh, a Bluetooth keyboard and I can code away on this tablet. Next room over I have the desktop I built when I need serious horsepower for something or need my nerd fix. It is 6-core AMD machine with 16 gigs of ram, a 120 gigabyte SSD and, integrated video. That is straight of 2011 and I call that my fast machine.
I could get back into carrying on about Open Source, but this statement:
Reveals the depth to which you have no clue whatsoever what you are talking about. There are plenty of people around here who might take the time to write a small book about it for you, but I am not one of them.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Except they don't run Linux, and for me that's a non-negotiable option. Either it runs Linux or I don't buy it. That's for both desktops and laptops. Consoles are not content creation devices and they won't become content creation devices. You need more powerful hardware to target graphics for console hardware that's due in 1-3 years time. Only a PC can do that. Maya is PC only. You can port all the unity/cryengine toolkits you want. Without modeling/animation/rigging software the engines are useless.
Tablets have pulled away from the PC market all those users who primarily do mail, browsing and Scrabble-class games. The way forward for desktops is to upscale into the professional market. When you want to run Autocad or Photoshop, nothing will substitute for a fast desktop.
There are also changes taking place in the way people work. In my consulting days I used a large laptop for everything; now that all my heavy software is being run in the home office only, I run a desktop there and a tablet on the road.
Early software was written because the author needed to perform a function that existing software didn't address: either in terms of utility or quality.
The PC magnified this need, with millions being sold but only crappy commercial software to run on it. Whether the free/share-ware in question was a Windows app or a different O/S, the same voids were filled for the same reasons. (If Windows software had started out as low-cost and high quality, would freeware have become so popular? Discuss.)
The argument now is whether that phase is over. Do we have enough apps? Can we (users) do all the things that we wish to, with the software that is available to us, now? Do we prefer to spend 99 on an app that has "star" ratings, user feedback, integrated installation is (almost) guaranteed not to make our hardware die, send SPAM or steal our data - or do we prefer to download something for zero cost and then spend hours trying to configure it and bend it to our will?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The only difference now is they use a smartphone or a laptop rather than a desktop.
The difference now is you can buy a computer for a few hundred dollars, even less if you just need hardware connected to the internet, along with a firehose of an internet connection, and can pretty much do what ever you want. That is as open as it gets.
The real heart of the matter is that most people could give a flip less about coding up their own solutions, any more than they are willing to change the oil on their car. They never will. The minority that is willing to do that will be the ones selling them solutions.
Couldn't find an exact figure, but this got me an approximate figure.
Which goes to show that tons of people don't mind going through minor hoops to get into the app store.
Does the OP have any proof that "Fewer people have the opportunity to write code and share it"? If anything, it's easy these days to get a professional development environment for pretty much any programming task, be it a pro version of Visual Studio for free or a free professional game engine. And people use them, as is evidenced for example by the huge growth in the number of PC and mobile games being published. Not to mention that consoles are a lot more open than they were in the past, with lots of indie games being available, and a normal Xbox One can be used for console development.
So even disregarding the sensationalist "PC is dead" angle, I feel that pretty much everything in the OP is not only unsubstantiated, but the opposite of the truth.
Protip: if you're not sure whether you should use it's or its, the needful is it;s.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Well, that is the goal, isn't it? Keeps power out of the 'wrong hands'.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
For anyone who needs to store a over a Tb or so of media and share it locally, it seems the PC remains the only way to do it. You can't send all that through high speed cable, or at least it would be stupid to do it, so the cloud is not an option. As long as there is a basic use like that, the PC will not die.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I can't really back this up with any data, but it's my speculation that all the people that NEED PCs are still getting them. What we're seeing in the area is that people that never actually needed everything a normal PC offers have migrated to phones and tablets. If you're just doing email and Facebook, a desktop machine is overkill, but there was no other choice for a long time.
There will always be programmers working on these sorts of "open" machines. We need them for academic and industry work and there's not any way that's going to change. Apple itself will always be a maker or a purchaser of those sorts of machines themselvesâ"OSes can't be made on heavily restricted machines.
What is the basis for this claim; ie, the PC is dying? I get the impression someone is pushing an agenda.
It may be that people who were using their PC primarily for gaming are beginning to opt for consoles more (if I understand the term "console" correctly), but there are a lot of people who don't play video/online games.
And if the major software manufacturers decide to move to consoles, I think that will encourage more people to use FOSS.
I have a hard time imagining SAP or Oracle releasing their products on consoles. And wouldn't they end up all wanting their own console? Imagine having a console for each business application.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
Nuff said!
/docow1 NO /docow2 STUPID /docow3 TRUTH YOU
The truth is that there are more opportunities for people to become programmers than ever before. Free education abounds. There are programming tools that run on common handheld devices. I don't know of an easier way to make a functional app which actually does stuff than Tasker, for example. You can install a complete Linux system on your Android phone and use it for Android development. Whence come these bullshit assertions that there are less opportunities to become programmers?
I don't know about you, but I can sideload anything I want onto literally all of my Android devices. I have a Pine64 (which is actually running Linux now, but I did run Android on it for a while), a MK908, an Amazon Fire stick, and a Moto G 2014, and I can load whatever I want onto any of them. Perhaps the problem isn't mobile devices. Perhaps it's Apple. Only, they have a minority market share, so is it really a problem?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Are we talking the 'death' when a generational math prodigy turns twenty-five?
Or the 'death' when a the fastest of all fast-living rock stars turns thirty?
Or the 'death' when an formerly fetching actress turns forty?
Or the 'death' when a corner-office executive producer turns fifty.
Or the 'death' when a commercial pilot turns sixty?
Or the 'death' when a professor emeritus turns seventy?
Or the 'death' when a defeated American presidential candidate turns eighty?
Or the 'death' when everyone's favourite preschool teacher turns ninety (on Okinawa)?
Or the mostly-just-resting 'death' when the queen mum turns one hundred?
And we're still not done. George Burns lived an entire Windows 95/98 maximal uptime (49 days) after his one hundredth.
It's good to feel that you are in control.
My grandparents' radio was a cabinet four feet high and two feet wide. It had a face that showed the names & frequencies of ~30 AM stations across the country. There were eleven knobs to adjust. When you turned it on it took a full minute to warm up and produce the pleasant background hum. A skilled operator could tune in stations from far and wide.
Modern radios often have no knobs, no fine adjustments for the skilled operator to fiddle with. They are common appliances that just work without any effort from the user. Likewise, the early automobiles had buttons, levers, knobs in an endless variety of arrangements. Today you have two pedals on the floor and a steering wheel and tomorrow you won't even need that. My first computer was controlled by a hex keypad in assembly language, and of course things are much simpler now.
For most people, computers will go the same way. Voice control, no knobs, no keyboard. Looking ahead, even voice control will be eliminated by direct neural connection. If you want to feel in control you'll have to look elsewhere. Knobs are a thing of the past. Being in control is a thing of the past.
...omphaloskepsis often...
PC sales are declining, but not with the demographic that the article is worried about. The folks who want to compile and run they're own stuff are a minority of the population. The folks who want to compile and run code buy just as many desktops as they always have.
On you very own site. You have an article about tape recorders and not only are still with us, but are thriving like vinyl records and holding their price value. I think that 3rd world countries will snatch up the opportunity to get the audience that still hungers for options and customization.. If options and customization are not true. Why do they still offer them on cars??
Why do your processing on a slow machine when you can have access to a remote rendering farm.
Are $5 per GB uploaded or downloaded and 1000 ms ping to said "remote rendering farm" reasons enough? This is the reality of satellite Internet.
Just because someone has to create works doesn't mean everyone needs to have this capability "without an investment of capital," as the article puts it. There will still be PCs for a price, and established businesses will still be able to afford this price just as established video game studios can afford console devkits.
I mean reading about programming from a guy that has on more than one occasion talked about virtual memory but literally has no clue about what it actually is makes me a little dubious. Anyway aren't they still sell tens of millions of PC/Laptops every year? They're just not replacing them every 2 years since a 5 year old laptop/desktop is good enough these days. (Can't wait until he'll say tablets are dead when they've just reached saturation as well.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
I think standardization of PC components would allow the average Joe to upgrade their desktop box piecemeal. Want a new graphics card? Pull A out of slot X, replace with new component B. Same with network adapters, motherboards, even modems.
If you post it, they will read.
Sure, modern machines don't boot up into BASIC (though I have two that start up in bash). But there's eclipse, Code::blocks, various QT things, and if you hold your nose even community editions of Visual Poodio that you can get with a few clicks for exactly zero of Her Germanic Majesty's finest pounds.
I want to know what this person is smoking, so I can go get some.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
you know even "a 14 year old Pentium 3" has enough CPU power for numerous tasks that are artificially restricted by the operating systems of smartphones, tablets, and game consoles, right? This includes, for example, compiling and running high school computer science homework.
I'm a Graphic designer.
And do you use GIMP for your job? Some other FOSS package?
Probably not or at least any FOSS you have is for some minor utility that you'd didn't want to buy.
PC ecosystem is changing. It's no longer our primary device.
Every just saw 'PC dead' and went all off completely missing the point.
No one understands subtle arguments anymore.
Tools You Need to Grow as an Artist https://krita.org/en/
"App Images For Linux, we offer AppImages These should run on any newer Linux distribution. For Ubuntu 12.04 and CentOS 6.x you need the appimage that is built without support for OpenMP. Be sure to make the appimage executable before launch. 64-bit Appimage"
Windows GNU/Linux Mac OSX Source Code.
I read it not as "death of the PC" but as "death of PC."
Sure, with Mr. Trump as president, he and his minions will suppress political correctness, which to some may sound like a Yuge Thing, but such will reduce openness because more people on the margins of society will get bullied?
That's why you use a laptop as a desktop replacement. You don't care if the power goes off for a second - it's not going to fry your machine. It's also quieter, and with an external mouse, keyboard, and screen, you still get the two-screen goodness as well as portability when you need it. And when it finally dies, you'll be able to buy a replacement for half the price that has 2x the ram, cores, and storage for half the price.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
They'really asking "Y?" because newcomers often fail victim to the XY problem, in which someone asks how to perform a particular step in a process when that might not even be the best step for that process.
Even if the VPS provider collects only $5 per month from you, your cellular or satellite ISP collects $5 for every gigabyte of data that you upload from your device to the VPS or download from the VPS to your device. Such data tolls for remote desktop sessions can add up.
It's 2017. It's Infoworld. Why did you expect anything more than fake news, citizen?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Turbo Pascal ad Turbo C were $99. Borland C++ 3.1 was available for upgrade pricing for far less then 1/4 the cost of a home computer then. And if you really wanted to scratch your itch, debug was free, and plenty of programs were built using nothing more than that (plus it gave you a good education into how computers worked).
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Mobile phones need a network, and the people owning the network don't want anything open about it.
Around 2008-2011, there used to be 10 inch laptops with an Atom CPU for $200 to $300. These were usable for even lightweight programming, as a suitable font size choice on the 1024x600 pixel display allowed viewing the program and its output side by side. Now PC makers won't touch that form factor, instead making more expensive tablets that need a clip-on keyboard (sold separately) for the same use cases.
Sorry but Intel will forever make desktop, workstation, and server processors, and you wil lbe able to buy cased, power supplies, motherboards, etc...
Calling the death of the PC is one of the single most stupid trends in "journalism" I have seen in the past 5 years. I have heard these wannabe bloggers calling the death for a half a decade and it is still not even close to true.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
All Android devices run Linux.
Just because the exponential growth of sales has ended, thus the PC is now in structural decline....
does not mean the PC is dead.
All it means is that New people who never owned computers before are no longer getting in at a fast rate.
There's a huge population now who have purchased desktops more than 4 years ago, but less than 8 years ago,
who already have all the Laptops and Desktops they will need for years to come. We're largely still running Windows XP and
Windows 7, if we can, or perhaps Linux, and we don't like changes Microsoft made in Windows 8 and Windows 10.
New operating systems are no longer a reason to upgrade hardware.
Our personal computers are lasting longer between upgrade cycles, and we need new ones less often.
This is a good thing for consumers, and a terrible thing for the hardware and software industry.
Industry in decline, or no longer exponentially growing does NOT mean the product is dead, it means a thing called
Market saturation was reached, new growth will not be possible, since everyone who would demand it has already
has bought it, and does not mean there is no future demand for PCs. They are rather ubiquitous in fact.....
Developing for iOS requires "no capital" only if you already develop apps for macOS. Otherwise you need to replace your PC with one made by Apple because Xcode is exclusive to macOS, and macOS is exclusive to Apple hardware.
For something that is dead I see and use an awful lot of them.
The PC isn't dying, it's more people don't need to keep buying a new PC every 4 years. The PC has matured and lucky for other technology like smartphones, tablets and such. The PC is stable enough to endure years of stable performance without needing replacement frequently. It's why I can sit at my 4 year old desktop and get a far better experience than my new iPhone. Too me all this power consumption obsession has basically produced weaker performance of flat line performance improvements. Sure I use my iPhone plenty and its way more portable than a tablet or even a ultrabook. But at home I much rather work with a big screen and more CPU power. This ideal that smartphones will replace PC's is a lie.
There are so many things wrong with the prediction that I don't know where to start.
Power: While content creation is often processor intensive, video editing is very processor intensive. Even playing 3K much less 4K video will get my i7/nvidia "mobile workstation" warm. I make youtube videos like many people. I can edit them on my notebook, but I export the media, which holds a hyperthreaded quad core at 90-100% for hours at a time. Notebooks don't not like that. Gaming computers are powerful, but I feel that few have enough airflow for having both the GPU and CPU running at the same time. Yes, video editing programs are GPU accelerated. 4K will be a bitch. My next desktop will have 8 cores.
While my notebook isn't bad a CAD/Design, because my desktop can run it's video card faster at all times, it's still faster. If I want to raytrace an animation I use my desktop because it can take the heat.
As for API's and computer languages, whatever all of you decide to use--will be used. There are a lot of computer languages out there. Companies can dictate whatever they want, but they are not going to be able to hold a platform if they are aren't on the same page as the bulk of programmers. This is a small but sill a significant part of why C/C++ is still popular.
The death of the PC is only the dream of the person who wants to sell you a service and control you information. Don't go for it.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
The only thing that can kill the PC is a better product, with a more reliable operating system, and I see nothing on the horizon that prohibits that evolutional step.
And, if under Trump, computers are outlawed (it would be a typical move for he and his kind), then only outlaws will have computers.
Pundits get paid to make outrageous predictions, only to fade into obscurity when their ignorant nightmares prove inept and ill-advised. Instead, they should think beyond their own limitations and ask: "What will supercede the Personal Computer and be even more desirable?" Quantum computers, perhaps? More likely: Things we've not yet even yet imagined, as was the Intel 4004 (which, after all, was invented because Busicom Corp. wanted a "better calculator" engine).
A lot fewer people programmed then, and a lot fewer people used what they programmed. These days by spending about $300 (less, if you make an effort to go cheap) you own a laptop and all the development tools needed to develop and distribute apps to an audience of a billion people.
I grew up in the 90s, and compilers were too expensive for a child. A single release of a crappy 16-bit compiler cost a quarter what the computer shared by the whole family cost, so it was like a combined birthdaychristmas present to get just one of them.
Turbo Pascal ad Turbo C were $99.
Key word: "child". When I was growing up, $99 was a combined birthday and Christmas present. And it was a crime for anyone to employ me.
Your next PC just might be a smart phone. The computing power of smart phones is getting close to the power of some desktops. So we may see docking stations that you simply plug in your monitor and key board and speakers and drop in your smart phone thus eliminating that box we are all used to having
Just that computer cost me almost 3 thousand dollars. I didn't blink either - it was a cost of doing business.
Key word: "business". If you're not using a $2000 to $3000 machine as part of a for-profit venture or registered charity, it becomes cost-prohibitive.
"Connected" just means more rent paid to the cellular carriers.
True of x86 and x86-64 Windows tablets, not so true of anything with an ARM CPU. Windows RT and Windows Phone are deliberately locked down to prevent, say, a compiler from running on the device.
They will be programmed using the tools available to experienced professionals at established businesses.
As they continue to turn the dial up to "11 shocking things your mom does that may surprise you" filled with hyperbole and incoherent nonsense the more people tune out and dismiss/ignore it as noise. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
noone plays 3 games at once.
What? Is Peter Noone from Herman's Hermits the new Chuck Norris?
If you meant "no one", then ability to run multiple games at once means you can do split screen co-op more easily instead of having to buy a separate machine for each player.
Rendering wise, was indered by internet if we talk remote computing.
It still is, at $5 to $10 per GB over cellular if you want to do anything on a tablet or laptop while at from home.
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.
Precisely. Where exactly did this one come from? Are they talking about the traditional PC form factor - of a tower accompanied by a separate monitor and keyboard, or are they talking about all Wintel devices?
Either way, I just don't see that. Whenever I go to Microcenter or Best Buy, I see a whole bunch of traditional desktop PCs - mainly for gaming, that are priced anywhere from $400 and up. A number of years ago, the prediction was that those would disappear as laptops became more affordable while tablets and netbooks horned into the desktop price range. Instead, the desktop has become solely a gaming platform, while each of the other form factors seem to have found their niches
The other premise of the submitter's question - an end to openness: what exactly does it mean? Does it mean that Walled Gardens would make something inherently less open? I see no reason why companies like Canonical, Red Hat, iXsystems, et al can't make devices that include their own OSs, if the PC does for any reason go away.
AMD plans to have more pci-e then intels desktop chips.
But any ways the intel desktop boards stuff usb, storage, networking, most of the pci-e lanes all over the pci-e 3.0 X4 DMI bus.
I have all the toys in question - 2 laptops, 2 tablets and 3 cellphones. Here is how each of them is used:
1. This laptop I'm working on (w/ TrueOS) is where I do the bulk of my stuff - my shopping, banking, slashdot and a few other sites I participate in
2. My Wintel laptop, which is what I use for work, as well as anything where I need something that's only available on Windows
3. My iPad, which I use to listen to Sirius XM when I am at home and not driving, as well as some games
4. My Ellipsis, which I use to check stuff in my various accounts. While I use the laptop to do things like money transfers and stuff, I use the tablet to make payments, or check the status of a transaction. I also use it when I'm travelling - to carry my e-ticket and so on
5. My iPhone, which I use to FaceTime and WhatsApp w/ family members, and also play games while I'm waiting for something at a restaurant, or in a clinic, or at the movies
6. My Moto X, which I use as a work phone, and separate from my personal phone. If any employer were to ask for a BYOD, that would be it
7. My Lumia, which I use as a travel phone whenever I'm out of the US and in exclusively GSM territory
Of the things I listed above, granted - a lot of them can be consolidated to 2 or 3 devices. But while I have a wireless keyboard for my iOS and Android tablets, I've found that a lot less convenient than a laptop. OTOH, I can't use my laptop if I need to call Lyft for any reason, like if my car is in service.
The reason everybody has sold production to China is that previously, everything was merely outsourced to the likes of Gigabyte, Asustech, Acer, Compal, Quanta, et al, and slowly, everybody realized that they were only paying extra for the brand, but otherwise getting the same shit from an HP or a Dell. Which is why it makes more sense to buy from a Lenovo or an Acer. But end result is that the only thing the IBMs or Dells are now making are the high end boxes. As far as Apple goes, it does make more sense for them to switch to A10s and beyond for their laptops: OS X is already iOS-ized, and that would also save them from Hackintosh undercutting their Mac sales, to the extent it happens at all. There ain't a strong reason for Apple to base its computing infrastructure on x64. Even for Mac Pro, Apple can introduce multiple A8 cores or something to match the throughput, since the underlying OS is perfectly SMP capable
Remember when computers were large mainframes sequestered in air conditioned data centers? And they were all run by the high priesthood of IT professionals? And the only hope that the 'common person' had of ever using their services was through a teletype, 3270 terminal or deck of punched cards? Well, the cloud is a lot like that, except that our terminal devices have much better graphics processing capabilities, so as to offload this task onto these clients. And they fit in our pockets, so we are given the illusion that we own them.
PC*s brought a major disruption in the power balance between IT service providers and the user community. One that these providers didn't like at all. And they have been working hard to reverse this little hiccup in their marketplace.
*Also, the Internet, with it's decentralized design. But the IT service industry shut that down pretty quickly by labeling any peer-to-peer protocol that bypassed them as evil (most probably piracy).
Have gnu, will travel.
The only ones leaving the PC market are those who didn't use it for anything but web browsing and email and even email is mostly now a browser task.
Given that, it does mean that households will no longer be an easy place for the kids to learn some of these other tools which require local CPU/RAM/storage to run but how widespread is that even. Lots of middle and high school kids have their own laptops from what I've seen.
The business sector will continue with desktops and laptops but in some cases might go with lower end models with many tasks operating from their own cloud apps. Not a complete elimination or even close IMO.
What I do see is more schools using Chromebooks and more interest and usage of Linux.
So yes, Bill Gates' idea of many Windows PCs in homes is fading quickly. And good riddance to that IMO
Also, wow to how many Mac laptops I'm seeing in the geek community. Just wow.
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Quantity vs quality. The software built today is shite - that's why it needs the internet, for the constant bug fixes and patches. Back then, the cost, labour, and time delay of shipping out a patch or bug fix on floppy was inducive to getting it right the first time.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Just because someone lacks the current capability to compile and run code because all they own is a smartphone, doesn't mean they don't have the ability to get a full blown desktop if they want. The PC isn't dying. The sky is not falling. Don't cry wolf.
The only thing that can kill the PC is a better product, with a more reliable operating system, and I see nothing on the horizon that prohibits that evolutional step.
You could say the same thing about the Automobile or the personal car or boat. Nothing on the horizon prohibits that evolutional step.
Nothing on the horizon shows that evolutional step will happen, either.
The demand for PCs will still exist, Until such time as a superior replacement can meet all the demand. An open platform for software development, running software, and creating things, are some of the things PCs are demanded for that nothing else provides.
Even if PCs become a niche market whose buyers are only computer scientists, engineers, makers, and other tinkerers, they still exist.
That's why there was a change of I/O bus from PCI to PCI-Express and USB3 with new connectors instead of USB2. (Not that the USB connectors are good connectors anyway)
Who remembers IPI (Intelligent Peripheral Interface) and ESDI (Enhanced Small Disk Interface)?
We also have seen a change of video interfaces over the years, from the digital CGA/EGA to the analog VGA to the mixed mode DVI and now to HDMI which exists in multiple versions. And with the HDCP contamination added.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
> (if you don't operate on any data).
FTFY. ISPs in the US are getting rid of, or raising the price of unlimited data plans. It's bad enough having Youtube chewing up your monthly allotment. When you start pushing years of personal photos back and forth across the net, you may find that a one-time purchase of a $2,000 PC costs less after a couple of years.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Objective-C was effectively an Apple thing only, as is Swift now. Technically they could be used on other platforms but nobody but a few academics did. Java and the API tied into Android are pretty locked down there. Microsoft tried and tried to make .net the defacto Windows language. But I just code mostly in C++ and use various SDKs to get around everything OS specific. Mostly works for me. Occasionally I have do dive in and do an Objective-C or Java thing and then wrap it in C++.
But as long as I can keep coding in C++ on any given platform I am not trapped on that platform. If Apple screws the pooch in the long term, then all my Android portable code is perfectly happy. Or if Tizen takes off then, again, I am still good.
So while I sit here on my desktop that I configured exactly as I wanted I only have a minor concern that I will someday end up cut off. To me the simple fallback position is Linux. But for now Microsoft has put on a major effort to make Windows the center of a cross platform universe, thus I am completely safe. I think that MS sees what it tried to do and realizes that if it keeps things cross platform they can lock out companies like Apple or Google from trapping people in their little ecosystems. Microsoft won't "Win" but they will prevent the others from forcing them to lose.
There still is a large population of PC gamers who are perfectly content to buy a second high end GPU for their Skyrim mods. I sincerely doubt computing power on your laptop and/or PC is going to become insignificant anytime soon, it's still the MO for any type of real work, and having a local crash and burn R&D environment will likely still be the preference of many developers/inventors. Running these environments will require a decent hamster.
Oh, are PCs dead again? What is this, the 15th consecutive year they have ceased to be?
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I expect Moore's Law, or similar, will eventually make it practical to fit a PC in your pocket, giving Android and IOS more competition.
But it's hard to predict when that point will be reached. It may also require PC applications that are not such power hogs.
Table-ized A.I.
Or at least I've been seeing these headlines for that long. Guess what? Still here, and not going anywhere. Tablets, phones, etc, are CONSUMPTION devices for information and media. People still need PCs to make things. Or even type long emails. Seriously, try typing a couple of paragraphs on a tablet, it's torture. If I have to send an email for work and it'll be longer than a quick note or reply I wait until I get to my desk to do it instead of trying my patience on my tablet.
are unemployed people who've never had to produce any significant work. Everything, spreadsheets, documents, databases, code for all those cute little phones, are still produced on PCs.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
In what world is the PC "dying?"
Yeah, a lot of people use their phones/tablets for things. But, as far as I'm concerned, the PC isn't dying, it's just not used 24/7 by consumers. I have a PC, tablet, phone, PS4, etc. I have not ONCE thought, "well, I hate my PC now, so I'll just throw it out". I mean, really?
Stupid media.
Most people prefer easy, simple 1-click type installs. App stores and locked down devices that must work accomplish that and broaden the user base. However, for those that like to tinker under the hood there are more tools than ever before. Linux, Qemu and a rich stable toolset like never seen before, filled with open source drivers fill our little playground. I am very optimistic about the future and believe that these app stores and 'walled gardens' actually increase development complexity and testing on the back-end, which further necessitates fancy workstations, test benches, standards, and open source.
You might be right there, but the fact that it was such a high cost to send patches meant that they (management) were willing to wait for full testing to be completed. Nowadays they rush shit out the door because it can be so easily patch when the bug turns up.
Don't get me wrong, it's fucken frustrating to buy a game, install it from disk, and then it has to download a 12gb "patch". Which is why I don't bother buying physical games anymore, was also running out of physical space for the games.
IIRC when Starcraft 2 came out they released a patch for it before the game was released, so they must have sent the image to be burnt (or pressed at those volumes) and found a bug before the game was ready for release.
Still annoying though.
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
I can't say I'm surprised - all in all, this will be good for those of us who were lucky enough to "come up" in an open world, but bad for the next generation that will have to fight and claw to learn how things actually work (if they ever manage to at all). It seems to me like we've been playing a sort of "musical chairs" game for the past 30 years or so and those of us who are sitting down right now are the "winners".
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
That said, why would you cancel your cable Internet for this?
A lot of people have to choose one or the other because they can't afford both $60/mo cable Internet and $60/mo cellular Internet. See the previous Slashdot story "Americans Abandoning Wired Home Internet, Shows Study".
if you imagine the development server being as locked down as a Chromebook or iDevice
By this, do you mean incapable of running programs in any language other than JavaScript?
an era when leaving Firefox open for a day with 20 or so tabs open seems to result in it eating 4+Gb of memory
Do you have privacy.trackingprotection.enabled turned on? It turns off scripts that track the user from one site to another, which tend to be big RAM hogs in my experience.
Are you wearing hockey pads?
PCs are so cheap, we give them away as presents.
The PC market isn't dying. It's saturated.
Call me back when the net number of PCs in the wild starts shrinking year over year.
Doesn't help that there hasn't been any reason to buy a new PC in... what... 6-7 years?
Paperless-Office has INCREASED the Paper Consumption by 400% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Casteism
What is this time's reason for predicting "the end of PCs"? Is it something new or just the same bullshit I heard back when laptops came out, netbooks, tablets, smartphones, macs, macbooks, and a number of other things, all of which were completely wrong and with tons of assumptions and misinformation completely disconnected with reality?
Is there any evidence whatsoever?
And then, I'm assuming, the hypervisor would put the guest operating systems into hibernation while the hypervisor restarts for security updates. Is that how it typically works?