I was raised writing stand-alone applications, but now it's all about containerized, subscription-based cloud apps. What should I be teaching my students?
I recognize that Mastodon may have a certain amount of selection bias.
There has always been a natural oscillation between centralized vs. decentralized throughout the history of computing. First it was centralized with large, clunky tube-driving machines. Then terminals began to become more sophisticated pushing things toward decentralization. Eventually those terminals became PCs with standalone applications. Then came networks and the rise of servers, moving back toward centralization again. Now economic, rather than technological drivers are pushing centralization to the extreme.
I think the drivers going forward will be AI, robots and security. With most communication happening between machines rather than people, UI/UX will be deemphasized and AI and machine learning will predominate. Security and political blowback will act as limiters to centralization – people and machines will want to maintain autonomy and security. And teaching how to connect to the hardware will become more important.
