Ask HN: What technologies are you guys excited about? - 7ero
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effie
Nim (language & compiler), because it seems to be the most accessible and
enjoyable way to write readable compiled programs. All the power of C
including existing libraries accessible through intuitive syntax inspired in
Python, Pascal and other familiar languages.

[http://nim-lang.org/](http://nim-lang.org/)

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csixty4
I've been on a Functional Programming kick lately. Wrote an FP library for
PHP. Done a little in JavaScript. Kicking the tires on a couple functional-
first languages. Looks like Scala may be a good place to settle down & get
comfy.

Aside from that, I'm thinking it might be time to start the discussion about
digital identity & reputation ecosystems again.

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runT1ME
_Functional Programming in Scala_ is probably my favorite tech/coding book
ever. It takes you from square one to writing a full fledged, 100% functional,
concurrent, IO tool kit. If you didn't think it was possible (or know how) to
do functional IO, or FP was helpful or things like databases, webservers etc.
definitely check this book out.

Scala is a great language too. Easy to get started with, very challenging to
master, but the community is great, job opportunities are very good, and I'm
having a blast doing it.

~~~
csixty4
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check it out!

The community is really what struck me about Scala so far. I'm coming from the
WordPress world, where the community is positive & supportive for the most
part.

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BWStearns
I know it's not really new but I've been playing with Erlang (really the whole
BEAM family including Elixer and LFE) a little and it seems very interesting.
The idea that future performance gains will be achieved through parallelism
has been around for a bit but at least from my perspective it seems like the
tools to achieve those gains have become significantly more available (not
just the technology itself, but the community, books/tutorials, and the
lessons learned).

Given the amount of logic being offloaded to the client in webapps and the
increase in app stores (package manager GUIs with price tags) I'm wondering if
there won't be a return of more dedicated desktop apps. I think Spotify,
Slack, and other electron/react native style apps may be the opening salvo.
They seem to be mostly geared towards allowing offline operation as opposed to
enabling distributed applications, but it'd be interesting to see if/how that
arises out of people becoming used to native apps again. I could imagine Slack
in particular cutting down on its requests to their servers by figuring out a
way to make teams opportunistically p2p and updating the server with diffs in
larger chunks.

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jotux
Rust for bare metal firmware, specifically on ARM, as a replacement for C/C++
with static analyzers.

~~~
w4tson
I'm trying out some embedded rust on arm. Tried using the rump kernel but it
was a non starter. Now making headway with the yocto project [0].

I'd be interested to know if you're running rust embedded and if so how easy
it is to get started.

[0] [https://www.yoctoproject.org/](https://www.yoctoproject.org/)

~~~
steveklabnik
[https://github.com/rust-embedded](https://github.com/rust-embedded) is a new
organization working through how to improve Rust on embedded.

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usgroup
Haxe : because it can target web, desktop and mobile with the same code for
apps and games , and allows for declarative UI building.

eXist-DB : XML DB with baked in app framework. Server side code is in XQuery.
Magic for data aggregation API building.

PicoLisp : Lisp + declarative Web UI + prolog + distributed DB in one tightly
coupled package. Build your next crawler in this to appreciate the magic.

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iyn
React. Today, because it's awesome, but I'm also exited about its development
(like fiber).

Relay 2 (not yet released), which claims to introduce a lot of new features
(like local state management, think something like flux/redux) and better
performance (more details: [https://speakerdeck.com/wincent/relay-2-simpler-
faster-more-...](https://speakerdeck.com/wincent/relay-2-simpler-faster-more-
predictable)). If the team behind Relay 2 were to deliver even 50% of those
claims, it'd be fantastic.

Functional programming - I was introduced to it on university, it was ok but I
wasn't raving about it. What's funny to me, JS made me love FP and before
React I really hated JS and looked at it as a toy language.

Scala - I'm only learning it but it's fascinating and learning it broadens my
general CS knowledge.

~~~
derricgilling
Scala is definitly a cool language to learn. I like the type safety in
statically typed language, and Java is just too verbose.

Scala + Play Framework + Akka is solid. We use scala for parts of our pipeline
for [https://www.moesif.com](https://www.moesif.com)

Docker is definitly up there also with Docker Swarm/Compose, etc. Just a
matter of time as Docker Cloud and the whole Container as a Service area is
fully matured. I like Kubernetes on Google or Docker Swarm on Azure, but still
a ways to go before it's like spinning up a Heroku like instance. They are one
of the few companies able to execute very well in getting people to adopt a
new technology.

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ruler88
Proliferation of extremely low-cost devices and propagation of near-free
internet connection to those who are currently not connected.

The frontiers of technical products have been hyper focused on the few lucky
individuals who have the latest iPhone/computer. Once we have more eyeballs on
the internet from the late boomer countries, I believe the internet will
change to address the needs of the folks who are using free (slow) internet
and $20 devices.

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kenmendiola91
Excited about the transformation in the recruitment industry through Machine
Learning/AI. Employers will get analytics on a candidates fit to the company
or job. P.S. I work for
[http://strategysolutions.com.au](http://strategysolutions.com.au)

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randelramirez
Been coding in C# for several years now, I played with F# and it's fun.
question though....do you guys think it will be as a popular as C# or Java?
you know "first-class" citizen(if I may say so) when it comes to writing
business apps(desktop/web/mobile(xamarin-already supported)). :D

~~~
blahfuk
Nope, I think it's much more likely the best features from F# will continue to
be ported to C# instead

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flukus
Docker (and similar), because I think simplifying server admin will be the end
of the cloud hype.

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flyx86
NixOS, because it fixes the problems Docker tries to build a workaround for.

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fitzwatermellow
WebRTC / QUIC. Apps like Google Allo and Duo are just the tip of the spear ;)

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gt565k
Programming on the go with google glass / digital contact lenses and a virtual
keyboard.

I think the nanotech will need another decade or 2, and perhaps a break
through in battery tech ;), but I can see us getting there in 2-3 decades.

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iLemming
Clojure and Clojurescript. Clojure.spec and Generative testing. Om.Next and
React Native. Apache Kafka and Docker. Emacs and org-mode.

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davidjnelson
React, lambda, dynamodb, functional programming.

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miguelrochefort
The Semantic Web

