

Will simplified operating systems kill future innovation? - ukdm
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/the-death-of-innovation-20110316/

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scott_s
We've seen this style of complaint many times since the announcement of the
iPad. I think it's mostly an overreaction. My two points:

1\. Hackers _hack_. People who have the hacker mentality figure out a way to
_be_ a hacker. Many people from my generation grew up using machines that were
exclusively Windows. (Yes, I know many people did not, but many did.) DOS was
hidden, and it came with no compilers. People still hacked. Yes, even that was
more "open" than an iPad. But the notion people keep bringing up is that
without the knowledge that hacking a system is possible, no one will do it. I
don't think this is true.

2\. The abstraction level that the majority of the next generation of hackers
operate at may be higher than the last generation. This is almost a self-
evident statement, but I haven't seen it mentioned much. The next generation
of hackers may not even need compilers. Perhaps they will take advantage of
the fact that all devices these days have a browser with a JavaScript runtime.

A part of me cries out, "But they'll completely take the operating system and
hardware for granted! They'll never have to think about the machine itself!"
And then I remind myself that this is _progress_. There are plenty of things
that hackers before me spent all of their time on that I rarely think about.

~~~
contextfree
If they're operating on a higher level of abstraction, surely they'll still
need compilers in the presence of a JavaScript runtime - they'll need them to
compile whatever higher level language they're using into Javascript!

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cryptoz
Simpler phones have resulted in previously incomprehensible quantities of
innovation. Remember phones 5 years ago? You had to know about IMEI numbers to
get your internet working. What kind of innovation did that spawn in its
users? None. Simpler phones have shown people that some tasks can be
programmed pretty easily. They've shown people tech can be _fun_.

No, I think simpler operating systems will dramatically increase the
productivity of the people using it day-to-day (think of all the millions or
billions of man hours wasted fixing Windows rather than innovating Windows)
and leave much more time open for people to just sit and think about how
things could be better.

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contextfree
I don't think "simplified" is the right word. Simplicity can foster
innovation, by leaving more space to fill. The word is "restricted".

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cullend
Yes a 10000 times. This is going to be a fun 2 years, btw.

