> This industry changes too quickly to do something like worry about 100 years in the future.
Disagree. It may seem ivory-tower-y, but it's a great aspiration, and I don't see anyone else doing it. PG is financially secure, and probably one of the smarter hackers out there - I think it would be hard for him to justify a less ambition goal - surely it's better than toiling away publishing academic papers for whatever academic fads are popular, the vast majority of which will lie discarded 100 years from now.
When I think about what technology was like 100 years ago, I'm dubious that aiming at 100 years from now is sensible. Creating and popularizing a good, hacker-friendly language that works well now is already a tough challenge and a worthy goal.
When I think about what technology was like 100 years ago
Touche... on the other hand, although I don't have artistic training, I'm sure there are techniques which have stayed around, even though photography has mostly "replaced" painting in most uses (or at least in some way...). By analogy, if some technology replaces explicit programming, people will still program.
Disagree. It may seem ivory-tower-y, but it's a great aspiration, and I don't see anyone else doing it. PG is financially secure, and probably one of the smarter hackers out there - I think it would be hard for him to justify a less ambition goal - surely it's better than toiling away publishing academic papers for whatever academic fads are popular, the vast majority of which will lie discarded 100 years from now.