tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3776799.post5776606645244659970..comments2019-08-30T06:08:13.223-07:00Comments on Sean McGrath: The biggest IT changes in the last 5 yearsSean McGrathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17729925642255386855noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3776799.post-10193034663585237642016-01-13T13:57:02.807-08:002016-01-13T13:57:02.807-08:00One of the biggest changes I've seen in the la...One of the biggest changes I've seen in the last few years is StackOverflow and related StackExchange sites. They've clearly become THE place to go for developers. Often coming up before official reference docs in a search.Mano Markshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07480503243910499765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3776799.post-12786670218288915372016-01-07T02:31:08.408-08:002016-01-07T02:31:08.408-08:00Yes, indeed. The complexity is tremendous. Ironica...Yes, indeed. The complexity is tremendous. Ironically, way-way-down the stack of most unix-flavoured machines (including Android devices?) is an X11 Windowing system which allows for applications to running on one machine while all the GUI/Interaction stuff runs on another machine. It allows application developers intercept mouse/keyboard events, paint lines and text etc. on remote machines....Basically all the stuff that is now being added to HTML 5-style browsers upteen levels further up the stack :-)<br /><br />I think it is doubly ironic that the X11 windowing system had a "consortium" based at MIT whose role was to steward the technology, create standards etc. Sound familiar?:-)<br /><br />A fun think to figure out would be this: Get a modern web app to draw a square using the canvas element, via javascript. Figure out how much cpu time is consumed before that request to draw a square gets turned into the corresponding X11 function calls, that do the same thing, way, way down the call stack:-)<br /><br />Sean McGrathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17729925642255386855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3776799.post-41156430174495916532016-01-06T11:00:27.463-08:002016-01-06T11:00:27.463-08:00It's interesting to note that the current inca...It's interesting to note that the current incarnation of things is a pretty wild set of shifts.<br /><br />1. [Mainframes] - Multiple users access a central multi-user computer remotely<br />2. [Personal Computers] - Users each have their own dedicated computer<br />3. [PC's to Early Web] - Users have their own dedicated computer to run an application that accesses a central multi-user computer remotely.<br />4. [PC's to Modern Web] - Users have their own dedicated computer to run an application that accesses a central multi-user computer (or cloud of computers) remotely to retrieve an application that runs in the JavaScript virtual machine sandboxed within said application, which often in turn communicates back to the same computer or cloud of computers for additional data/requests.<br /><br />WHEW We're getting to a point where there are a lot of abstraction layers going on. The pendulum swung one way, back again, then back once more, got tangled up, melted and blended into some higher level thing - what that will look like in the end I have no idea. The complexity therein is tremendous.<br /><br />Brant Watsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09706226224347660568noreply@blogger.com