Scientific computing in 10 years
24 May 2017Greg Wilson, being the gloomy jaded pessimist he is, thinks leading-edge programmers will be doing scientific computing in JavaScript in 10 years. I disagree—I don't know what these programmers will be using then, but to the extent that they will be building on currently mainstream technologies I think it will continue being R and Python, rather than JavaScript. We placed a bet on it; this post is here for reference.
Going for him, Greg has the most popular language today, which, from a humble and rushed start in our browsers, continues to shift shape and burrow in the most unlikely places, and to prove all of its naysayers wrong. Against that, I have technologies that have ingrained themselves in the scientific community, which have fast, usable, and sophisticated modules that took many years to build and get right, and which offer newcomers a different career path and paradigm, spiraling out of data and formulas (rather than out of the browser) into the rest of the world.
Whoever wins the bet, it should be a fun dinner in 2027, and I'm looking forward to it.