Where is software headed? A virtual roundtable

Abstract

To find out where software is headed, experts in academia and industry share their vision of software's future. It is a snapshot in time of where we have been and possibly where we are headed. The subjects discussed are: the desktop; software technology; objects; software agents; software engineering; parallel software; and the curriculum. The results suggest a strong polarization within the software community: a chasm exists between academia and industry. It appears that these two groups share radically different views on where software is headed. The impression is the heavy emphasis on programming languages, operating systems and algorithms by the academic group, in contrast to the clear emphasis on standards and market-leading trends by the industrial group. Academics worry about evolutionary or incremental changes to already poorly designed languages and systems, while industrialists race to keep up with revolutionary changes in everything. Academics are looking for better ideas, industrialists for better tools. To an industrial person, things are moving fast-they are revolutionary. To an academic, things are moving too slowly, and in the wrong direction-they are only evolutionary changes which are slave to an installed base.