Re: [xml-dev] [OT] What are the key technical problems of our era?

[adasal <adam.saltiel@gmail.com>]

This is what it is, the problems of humans and our use of technology.

It is true that the modern world has only recently evolved this pattern that makes so much of what others have described very familiar to us all, so the phenomenon is, well of a long evolution, what, since the time of the Greeks, with a significant recent acceleration (500 years) and change in pattern (formal career paths, defined occupations? 100 and a few years?).

But the bigest problem that presses upon all of us is the consumption of resources and the growth of population.

This, of course, is really a series of several problems.

For instance it could be divided along the line of the problems associated 1. the experience of living in an ever more crowded world and 2. how to enable mechanisms by which world population will begin to decline.

Anyway, my hunch is that information (new technologies around which) will play a medium term beneficial role (despite my earlier expressed pessimism, yes I do think re 1. we are up for some turbulent times).

Adam

On 9 July 2012 16:22, Stephen D Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com> wrote:

The technology experts are all getting old and retiring. The education of newbies is slowing as there are fewer experts around to train them

and less economic incentive to train them. fewer and fewer newbies are interested in being trained anyway (why learn skills which barely

return enough salary to cover the cost of training, etc).

 

I guess we need systems which will maintain and adapt themselves to changing requirements with less and less need for expert human help:

Or will that exacerbate the problem by helping to dumb-down the workforce and provide less incentive to budding entrepreneurs?!

 

This all probably applies to XML. More experts retire or want the spend time in leisure rather than training up newbies. Fewer newbies want

to learn XML because they don't expect a return on investment for doing so (nor do their employers, if they have them). Looks bleak. Enter

MicroXML - but perhaps too late (not enough of a critical mass left on this list to listen or doing the training and learning).

 

Another challenge - where does the emerging world fit into all this? Is it attractive to the talents from India, China, Brazil, etc to learn all this?

Would they want to promote and use the likes of MicroXML or prefer to either invent their own alternative (good!) or master XML instead (good!)?

----

Stephen D Green

On 8 July 2012 22:27, Costello, Roger L. <costello@mitre.org> wrote:

Hi Folks,

In the 15th and 16th century a key problem was that there were no accurate clocks. Accurate clocks were needed by ships at sea to determine their position. Smart individuals, such as the Dutch mathematician, astronomer, and physicist Christian Huygens, worked and solved this problem with the creation of the pendulum clock along with its mathematical underpinnings.

What are the key technical problems of our time?

What waters can we not sail today because we do not have the technology and the math and science underpinnings to enable it?

/Roger

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