Smartphones (since first iPhone) - 14 years.
Laptops (since first Apple Powerbook) - 30 years.
PCs (since first IBM PC) - 40 years.
C programming language will be 50 years old next year.
SQL will turn 50 in 2024
This principle implies the C programming language will outlive Rust, Go, Python, etc. I'm not sure how I feel about that. There's a good chance its right, but I'm uncomfortable imagining my grandchildren learning C's weird quirks.
There's definitely codebases written in C today which will outlive me, like the Linux kernel. And most of those codebases will probably never migrate to a different language.
The question of whether a technology simply exists vs. whether it retains its popularity is an interesting one. Chairs and forks will both exist and be popular. iPhones will exist, but they won't be popular on some time scale. So it is interesting to think whether C is closer to one or the other :)
In any case, I'd argue that most of the quirks are due to undefined behaviour as implemented in the compilers. And 50 years from now the language have probably evolved some more anyway.
I learned Dvorak a decade ago and loved it unless someone else had to use my computer or I had to use a shared computer. I'm typing this on a qwerty keyboard and I'm okay with that now.
Typewriter layouts are designed to avoid jamming, but not by reducing typing speed. They place letters that are pressed in direct succession apart, so that the levers don’t collide. Trained typists can write pretty damn fast on a typewriter.
I've always wanted a Blick, their "scientific" DHIATENSOR layout intrigues me. They also made a qwerty version and I seem to remember a story that their salespeople would make you sign a waiver that you were choosing a less efficient keyboard if you bought one. That's certainly 90% marketing for their layout and maybe 10% fact, but I find it amusing (if true, but I can't seem to find a reference to it any more).
I'll bet typewriter-trained typists can really move. It's definitely a separate skill, at least for the manual typewriters in my collection which have about an inch of key travel and a heck of a lot more actuation force than the gateron red switches I use at work. :-)
Ultimately I find that the fastest layout is the one you know.
... and that really reduces typing speed. When i switched to dworak I was amazed how my fingers just roll on a keyboard, forming sentences faster than I even form a conscious understanding in which succession should I move my fingers. It just happens as if by itself!! Just think of a word to type and it is already on the screen.
That may be the effect for you, but it's not a goal. It's maybe a tradeoff, but machine writing is a trainable craft. Usual results for trained people are at about 200 - 400 characters per minute measured over 10 minutes. Championship results are at up to 900 characters.
[1]: http://www.recordholdersrepublic.co.uk/world-record-holders/...
Dvorak has specialised right- and left-handed layouts. Maybe it also needs specialised one finger layouts, too.
I can imagine you'd need to use both thumbs extensively or you'd be jumping back and forth. I definitely found that when I was laying on my side on the couch, propped up with one arm, qwerty was easier to use with one hand. Not that that's an ergonomic or sustainable way to type, but I was a lazy college student and I didn't care.
What about them learning English's even weirder quirks? Does that make you uncomfortable as well?
I have come to the point that I sort of accept C's quirks, and, with the appropriate mindset, I can even love them. I certainly see myself as an old man teaching these arcane quirks to a young and innocent audience.
And COBOL is extremely niche, while C is still quite common and useful to know.
Certainly higher-level languages have edged out C in many domains though.
That kind of Apple revisionism is not correct. The NEC UltraLite predated Apple clamshells by 3 years (1988), and luggables with a battery configuration have been available as early as 1981 (Osborne 1 with an aftermarket 1 hour battery add-on).
“The TRS-80 Model 100 is a portable computer introduced in 1983. It is one of the first notebook-style computers, featuring a keyboard and liquid crystal display, in a battery-powered package roughly the size and shape of a notepad or large book.”
James Watt didn't actually invent the steam engine. He just came up with an invention that made it a lot more efficient.
I'm still inclined to think someone would have jumped to a smartphone without a keyboard. But it's also true that the iPhone had plenty of critics early on and arguably didn't fully hit its stride until the 3GS.
I mean, imagine a parallel world where those smartphones weren't designed to shove ads down your throat and where they could be used to be as productive as with a laptop, and where people could help to automate their lives on their own with it.
That would be so amazing.
Entire generations have been lifted from poverty due to it.
Smartphones aren’t consumption-only.
I disagree, even when talkingn about a smartphone as a human interface device and not, as was the actual context of the thread, a computing device.
Having a, say, DeX-enabled Android (or even potentially powered by fairly traditional Linux, if one doesn’t just use a major maker device with stock software) smartphone as a computing device doesn’t preclude standard desktop I/O devices fo interact with it in manner very similar to a standard desktop PC.
> They are not usable as general-purpose creation machines.
Again, as an exclusive computing device, they are just about as much as is any computing device.
Even as an exclusive HID, there’s a giant excluded middle between “consumption only” and “not usable as general purpose creation machines”.
You seem to be conflating the ability to be used with a limited interface with a restriction to be used with only a particular interface. I desktop PC has the ability to be used without a graphics tablet. It would be a much more limited creation device if it were restricted to being used without one. And the same is true of everything that isn’t a touchscreen, microphone, or other built in human interface and smartphones. But a smartphone as an exclusive computing device does not imply the limitations of its built-in interfaces, since having external interfaces is also a standard feature of the class.
Any alternative where trade didn't follow optimal path is due to regulation / force. And in most, the force required to steer humans away from their nature also kills innovation.
Ergo: you cant have a miracle chip in your pocket with no one using it to sell you potato chips.
2. Capitalism is not "natural" either and only started developing in the post-renaissance world.
3. Natural selection demonstrates conclusively that relying on purely natural processes to drive "innovation" often lead to highly non-optimal and harmful trends.
4. Most of the major scientific and technological innovations of the 20th century were either the direct result of or funded by "force" which I take to mean government.
5. Advertisement was not the only monetisation strategy that the internet and telecommunication industry could have taken. The internet could have very easily gone down the subscription route and the only reason why anybody thinks otherwise is because of the decade long marketing that has normalised getting everything for "free".