Significant new inventions in computing since 1980

Question

The Internet itself pre-dates 1980, but the World Wide Web ("distributed hypertext via simple mechanisms") as proposed and implemented by Tim Berners-Lee started in 1989/90.

While the idea of hypertext had existed before (Nelson’s Xanadu had tried to implement a distributed scheme), the WWW was a new approach for implementing a distributed hypertext system. Berners-Lee combined a simple client-server protocol, markup language, and addressing scheme in a way that was powerful and easy to implement.

I think most innovations are created in re-combining existing pieces in an original way. Each of the pieces of the WWW had existed in some form before, but the combination was obvious only in hindsight.

And I know for sure that you are using it right now.

Free Software Foundation (Established 1985)

Even if you aren't a wholehearted supporter of their philosophy, the ideas that they have been pushing, of free software, open-source has had an amazing influence on the software industry and content in general (e.g. Wikipedia).

I think it's fair to say that in 1980, if you were using a computer, you were either getting paid for it or you were a geek... so what's changed?

• Printers and consumer-level desktop publishing. Meant you didn't need a printing press to make high-volume, high-quality printed material. That was big - of course, nowadays we completely take it for granted, and mostly we don't even bother with the printing part because everyone's online anyway.

• Colour. Seriously. Colour screens made a huge difference to non-geeks' perception of games & applications. Suddenly games seemed less like hard work and more like watching TV, which opened the doors for Sega, Nintendo, Atari et al to bring consumer gaming into the home.

• Media compression (MP3s and video files). And a whole bunch of things - like TiVO and iPods - that we don't really think of as computers any more because they're so ubiquitous and so user-friendly. But they are.

The common thread here, I think, is stuff that was once impossible (making printed documents; reproducing colour images accurately; sending messages around the world in real time; distributing audio and video material), and was then expensive because of the equipment and logistics involved, and is now consumer-level. So - what are big corporates doing now that used to be impossible but might be cool if we can work out how to do it small & cheap?

Anything that still involves physical transportation is interesting to look at. Video conferencing hasn't replaced real meetings (yet) - but with the right technology, it still might. Some recreational travel could be eliminated by a full-sensory immersive environment - home cinema is a trivial example; another is the "virtual golf course" in an office building in Soho, where you play 18 holes of real golf on a simulated course.

For me, though, the next really big thing is going to be fabrication. Making things. Spoons and guitars and chairs and clothing and cars and tiles and stuff. Things that still rely on a manufacturing and distribution infrastructure. I don't have to go to a store to buy a movie or an album any more - how long until I don't have to go to the store for clothing and kitchenware?

Sure, there are interesting developments going on with OLED displays and GPS and mobile broadband and IoC containers and scripting and "the cloud" - but it's all still just new-fangled ways of putting pictures on a screen. I can print my own photos and write my own web pages, but I want to be able to fabricate a linen basket that fits exactly into that nook beside my desk, and a mounting bracket for sticking my guitar FX unit to my desk, and something for clipping my cellphone to my bike handlebars.

Not programming related? No... but in 1980, neither was sound production. Or video distribution. Or sending messages to your relatives in Zambia. Think big, people... :)

Package management and distributed revision control.

These patterns in the way software is developed and distributed are quite recent, and are still just beginning to make an impact.

Ian Murdock has called package management "the single biggest advancement Linux has brought to the industry". Well, he would, but he has a point. The way software is installed has changed significantly since 1980, but most computer users still haven't experienced this change.

Joel and Jeff have been talking about revision control (or version control, or source control) with Eric Sink in Podcast #36. It seems most developers haven't yet caught up with centralized systems, and DVCS is widely seen as mysterious and unnecessary.

From the Podcast 36 transcript:

0:06:37

Atwood: ... If you assume -- and this is a big assumption -- that most developers have kinda sorta mastered fundamental source control -- which I find not to be true, frankly...

Spolsky: No. Most of them, even if they have, it's the check-in, check-out that they understand, but branching and merging -- that confuses the heck out of them.

BitTorrent. It completely turns what previously seemed like an obviously immutable rule on its head - the time it takes for a single person to download a file over the Internet grows in proportion to the number of people downloading it. It also addresses the flaws of previous peer-to-peer solutions, particularly around 'leeching', in a way that is organic to the solution itself.

BitTorrent elegantly turns what is normally a disadvantage - many users trying to download a single file simultaneously - into an advantage, distributing the file geographically as a natural part of the download process. Its strategy for optimizing the use of bandwidth between two peers discourages leeching as a side-effect - it is in the best interest of all participants to enforce throttling.

It is one of those ideas which, once someone else invents it, seems simple, if not obvious.