A new year has started, so happy new year to all of you !!!

This blog entry, unlike my previous ones, is not about .NET, although there are a few technical links 🙂 .

The end-of-year period has always been a period for resting, meeting with family and friends, reflecting on the year just past … thanking god for the good life and the good people around me … and thinking about what could come soon …

For resting, I really enjoyed the reading of a comic book serie called “Les Naufragés d’Ythaq” or in english “Ythaq: The Forsaken World” (see references below):

The scenario is from Christophe Arleston and the drawings by Adrien Floch. I started the reading 3 years ago but the serie was not finished at the time. Now the first cycle (book #1 to #9) is finished – no more wait, so hurry !

Obvously, in France, resting is one side of the story – Family/friends gathering around a good table, i.e. good food and wine, is the other side story – no more comments.

Going back to Technical subjct, I also read and searched about “Testing Quadrants” (big picture here).

I have ordered the book “Agile Testing” written by Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory, but I have not read it yet. “Testing Quadrants” are useful to help any technical team to build a safety net of tests for their system and explore new ways about testing their systems, see further References below.

2013 is here … I remember back in early 2003, people were saying that 10 years later the programming world would be dominated by Java and .NET languages (C# / VB.NET). Looking at the figures and the graph from TIOBE.com web site, the TIOBE programming indexes, no one could have forecasted the succes of “Objective-C” the language used to develop iOS applications. So forecasts are just forecasts, i.e. an indication, sometimes in the good direction sometimes not. The other interesting point is to note that C is still widely used – C was created beginning of 1970’s, more than 40 years ago, thanks to Dennis Ritchie. Incredible for a programming language to last that long!!

Another thing I remember at the time in 2003 were the talks about car self-driving. What happened in may 2012?

Google got a Nevada driving licence for self-drive car, a modified Pryus car from Toyata. Whahouh !!

Google/Toyata Self-driving car

And Toyata carries on “Toyota sneak previews self-drive car ahead of tech show (BBC)“. Maybe in 10 years time from now, my kids would not have to learn driving. What about old people or disabled people? they will have a car and go where they want.

Now a few more links to keep thinking what might come in the near future :

• IBM: The 5-in-5 senses computer [IBM web site] and [BBC web site].

• Microsoft : Meet Microsoft, the world’s best kept R&D secret (PC World).

• Bendable phone and others [BBC].

I hoped you enjoyed this first blog entry and if you have other links about what the future might bring us in the next 5 to 10 years, please post them and we will see in 2023 what really happened. Again Happy New Year 2013 to you !!

References:

• Happy New Year 2013 ! picture
  • I took it from a fantastic selection on this web site. Thank you XeBii Mj.
• Les Naufragés d’hytaq, Christophe Arleston / Adrien Floch / CrazyToons / Claude Guth / Sébastien Lamirand
  • Wikipedia, Les Naufragés d’Ythaq.
  • Ythaq web site.
  • Amazon.fr .
  • Amazon UK, “Ythaq – The Forsaken World “ .
• Testing Quadrants:
  • http://blog.jonasbandi.net/2010/02/agile-testing-quadrants.html
  • http://www.betterprojects.net/2010/08/lisa-crispins-test-quadrants.html
  • http://www.agiletester.ca/downloads/Chapter__9x_Quadrant_Summary_v3.pdf
  • http://blog.jonasbandi.net/2010/08/cassandra-syndrome-knowing-that-failure.html
  • The book at Amzon UK .