一些回答提到了量子计算机，好像它们还在遥远的未来，但我不敢苟同。

There were vague mentions of possibility of quantum computers in 1970s and 1980s (see timeline on Wikipedia), however the first "working" 3-qubit NMR quantum computer was built in 1998. The field is still in infancy, and almost all progress is still theoretical and confined to academia, but in 2007 company called D-Wave Systems presented a prototype of a working 16-qubit, and later during the year 28-qubit adiabatic quantum computer. Their effort is notable since they claim that their technology is commercially viable and scalable. As of 2010, they have 7 rigs, current generation of their chips has 128 qubits. They seem to have partnered with Google to find interesting problems to test their hardware on.

我推荐这段简短的24分钟视频和维基百科上关于D-Wave的文章作为快速概述，在这个由D-Wave创始人和首席财务官撰写的博客上有更多的资源。

我认为这些答案的部分问题是，它们要么没有得到充分的研究，要么是在尝试一种新的实现或一些已经看到重大“改进”的技术。然而，这并不是一项重大发明。例如，任何关于函数式编程或面向对象编程的讨论都是失败的;这些想法在大多数SO参与者出生之前就已经流传了。

我认为自20世纪80年代以来发明的最好的想法将是我们不知道的。要么是因为它们很小，无处不在，以至于不引人注意，要么是因为它们的受欢迎程度还没有真正起飞。

前者的一个例子是单击并拖动以选择文本的一部分。我相信这是1984年首次出现在麦金塔电脑上。在此之前，您有单独的按钮用于选择选择的开始和结束。相当繁重。

后者的一个例子是(可能是)可视化编程语言。我不是说像hypercard，我是说像Max/MSP, Prograph, Quartz Composer, yahoo pipes等。目前它们确实是小众的，但我认为，除了思想分享之外，没有什么能阻止它们像标准编程语言一样具有表现力和强大的功能。

可视化编程语言有效地加强了引用透明性的函数式编程范式。这对于代码来说是一个非常有用的属性。他们执行这一点的方式也不是人为的——这只是由于他们使用的比喻。

VPL让那些本来不会编程的人也能编程，比如有语言障碍的人，比如阅读困难的人，甚至只是需要简单节省时间的门外汉。专业程序员可能会对此嗤之以鼻，但就我个人而言，我认为如果编程成为一种真正无处不在的技能，就像识字一样，那就太好了。

就目前来看，VPL只是一个小众的兴趣，还没有真正成为主流。

我们应该做些什么不同的事情

all computer science majors should be required to double major- coupling the CS major with one of the humanities. Painting, literature, design, psychology, history, english, whatever. A lot of the problem is that the industry is populated with people that have a really narrow and unimaginative understanding of the world, and therefore can't begin to imagine a computer working any significantly differently than it already does. (if it helps, you can imagine that I'm talking about someone other than you, the person reading this.) Mathematics is great, but in the end it's just a tool for achieving. we need experts who understand the nature of creativity, who also understand technology.

But even if we have them, there needs to be an environment where there's a possibility that doing something new would be worth the risk. It's 100 times more likely that anything truly new gets rejected out of hand, rather viciously. (the newton is an example of this). so we need a much higher tolerance for failure. We should not be afraid to try an idea which has failed in the past. We should not fully reject our own failures- and we should learn to recognize when we have failed. We should not see failure as a bad thing, and so we shouldn't lie to ourselves or to others about it. We should just get used to it, because it is just about the only constant in this ever changing industry. Post mortems are useful in this regard.

One of the more interesting things, about smalltalk, I think, was not the language itself, but the process that was used to arrive at the design of smalltalk. The iterative design process, going through many many revisions- But also very carefully and critically identifying the flaws of the existing system, and finding solutions in the next one. The more perspectives, and the broader the perspectives we have on the situation, the better we can judge where the mistakes and problems are. So don't just study computer science. Study as many other academic subjects as you can get yourself to be interested in.

企业服务总线似乎是一个相当新的“发明”，尽管它当然是基于更古老的技术。

Eclipse IDE

将Smalltalk这样的IDE带给大众;)

函数式编程研究者对单子的重新发现。单子有助于让一种纯粹的、懒惰的语言(Haskell)成为一种实用的工具;它还影响了组合子库的设计(一元解析器组合子甚至在Python中找到了自己的方式)。

Moggi的“程序模块的范畴理论解释”(1989)通常被认为是将单子引入有效计算的观点;Wadler的作品(例如，“命令式函数式编程”(1993))将单子作为实用工具。