Need for common programming platform
Description:
English is one of the most widely used languages in the world with which people from diverse parts of the planet can communicate. The world language is a phenomena of both historical background and current consensus. It serves as a common platform on top of which heterogeneity is hidden. Similarly, this could, and with great demand, to happen in the computing world where exist various kinds of programming languages and a great many chances to communicate. In fact, the need for common programming platform is becoming more and more pressing as a result of increasing demand for concurrent application cooperation, especially over the wide area network. It is not too hard to think of the advantages of having a common platform for all programs just as having a common language for people to speak. In that case, inter process communication would be straightforward, component reuse would prevail, very large scale cross-domain cooperation would be possible... This is a fascinating picture which all computer scientists want to pursue and they are gradually getting to that. Nowadays grid computing is trying to offer a tip of an iceberg. It provides a common programming platform as the middleware on top of heterogeneous hardward and software architectures for every program possible. The programming toolkit provided by grid platform, such as GAT and globus toolkit, can be adapted by every popular programming languages to utilize grid resources tranparently. This is a giant step towards the goal of having a world language in the programming world, while leaving existing programming languages and models intact. A seamless integration of more advanced common platform will emerge, driven by the need, and we should expect a thriving future on this.
Enablers:
- The need for easier inter process communication
- The need for easier worldwide resouce sharing
- The need for easier programming to utilize distributed resources and communicate between other processes or programs.
- The need to hide heterogeneous natures of underlining hardware and software platforms
Inhibitors:
- Closed source software development in some commercial companies
Paradigms:
There has been enormous concern about the consequences of human population growth for the environment and for social and economic development. But this growth is likely to come to an end in the foreseeable future.
Experts:
United Nations US Department of Health and Human Services
Timing:
Improving on earlier methods of probabilistic forecasting, here we show that there is around an 85 per cent chance that the world's population will stop growing before the end of the century. There is a 60 per cent probability that the world's population will not exceed 10 billion people before 2100, and around a 15 per cent probability that the world's population at the end of the century will be lower than it is today. For different regions, the date and size of the peak population will vary considerably.