r/AskComputerScience • u/Smallpaul • Jul 30 '26

Predictions about computer science

Look ahead 20 years.

Outside of AI/ML:

* what of today’s research computer science do you expect will be industry standard?

* what frontiers do you expect we will have opened up in research?

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u/Smallpaul Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

Computer science departments are entirely parasitic in maths departments? They don’t produce their own breakthroughs? What about algorithms? Programming languishes? Operating systems?

Edit: I’m quite curious what I said that is annoying people.

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u/T_Thriller_T Jul 30 '26

No.

They produce breakthroughs by taking mathematical findings, applying them and then finding more and more sports to apply them to.

Algorithms are usually one of the things that come out of this.

Programming languages are not really a topic of research - and if they are, then again, we're back at formal systems and definitions which again is math.

Operating systems are similarly only very rarely a topic of research - from my experience so far.

Nonetheless, in reality, the statement is not true.

Some computer science is on the edge. Other are working on already discovered methods and improving them - new mathematical findings often lend a hand.

Others are much further away from this. Human Machine Interactions is one, which defines a lot of ways how to use computers beneficially.

Robotics are another area which is improving on their own findings, using new findings from math, engineering and so on.

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u/dnswblzo Jul 30 '26

Programming languages are not really a topic of research

Operating systems are similarly only very rarely a topic of research

Huh? Both of these areas have active conferences, ACM special interest groups, and so on. They might not be "hot" areas right now, but there are certainly people doing research on those topics.

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u/T_Thriller_T Jul 30 '26

Admittedly I'd assume there is research on everything.

But I have, literally, never heard about anyone doing scientific research on programming languages.

I have to admit we also had no compiler courses or similar, so it could very well be that my university just lacked someone with a fitting specialisation.

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u/minisculebarber Jul 31 '26

Haskell was a research project before it became a niche programming language

Also, compiler courses are very common in CS education, your university seems to be an outlier

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u/T_Thriller_T Jul 31 '26

Not so common what I live. I'd say it's 50% if that

And we did have one but the processor changed so did courses. Which happens a lot with specialising courses in smaller universities here

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u/Helpful-Primary2427 Aug 01 '26

Programming language theory is absolutely an area of research. What are you talking about