Temporal Data in SQL Server 2016

Temporal in SQL Server 2016 | Data Exposed | Channel 9
"...Borko Novakovic, a Program Manager in the SQL Server team, is in Redmond all the way from his home in Belgrade, Serbia to introduce us to the new Temporal technology being introduced in SQL Server 2016. Temporal in SQL Server is designed to simply the handling of time-varying data. It provides the ability to look at data trends, types of data changes, and the overall data evolution within your database.
... Temporal ... will be included in Azure SQL Database and SQL Server 2016."

SQL Server Temporal Tables @MSDN

"SQL Server 2016 Community Technology Preview 2 (CTP2) introduces support for temporal tables as a database feature that provides built-in support for provide information about data stored in the table at any point in time rather than only the data that is correct at the current moment in time. 

Temporal is a database feature that was introduced in ANSI SQL 2011 and is now supported in SQL Server 2016 Community Technology Preview 2 (CTP2). Temporal is a database feature that was introduced in ANSI SQL 2011 and is now supported in SQL Server 2016 Community Technology Preview 2 (CTP2)"

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The way this works is that when data are updated in the main db table that is flagged as "temporal", 

previous value is moved into a separate (hidden) table along with the timestamp. This way previous values are available for query based on time of update. 

JavaScript vs. Dart

Google Moves Dart to GitHub and Kills the Chrome Dev Editor
"Google designed Dart as a better language for the web, for developers who wanted a more solid language and tools than what existed in the JavaScript ecosystem. Also, they aimed for better performance. While Dart is certainly more robust and better designed than JavaScript and it outperforms JavaScript on several benchmarks, the language has seen several setbacks.

Google announced in March they would no longer push the Dart VM for the browser, but instead focus on compiling Dart to JavaScript. The reason mentioned was developers’ desire to have “better integration with JavaScript, and they need an easier way to debug and optimize their appsacross all modern browsers”

Now Google has decided to move Dart to GitHub including the entire SDK, the VM, dart2js and various libraries.

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JavaScript is winning, at lest for now. 

Dart is example of "intelligent design"  and JavaScript is a "messy evolution"

Creator of Dart language made JavaScript viable by improving its performance 1000 times with V8 engine, after doing the same for Java language before that with HotSpot.

Dart has a good clean design, but by not being actively used, it was not able to compete effectively. 

And being located in Denmark and not in Silicon Valley maybe didn't help either... 

Next-Gen Computing?

Radical Next-Gen Computing Guest Editor's Introduction | June 2015 - IEEECS
"In the past half century, driven by rapid, phenomenal advances in microelectronics closely following Moore’s law, computers of different kinds, forms, and shapes have evolved, redefined, and transformed almost everything we deal with. However, they still function on the same fundamental computational principles that Charles Babbage and Alan Turing envisaged and that John von Neumann and others subsequently refined. What’s in store for the next 50 years? Do the fundamental principles and assumptions that define modern computing — and that have guided us so far — require revolutionary rethinking?

• Quantum Computing
• Biologically Inspired Computing
• Nanocomputing"

The Machine: A new kind of computer @ HP

"The Machine will fuse memory and storage, flatten complex data hierarchies, bring processing closer to the data, embed security control points throughout the hardware and software stacks, and enable management and assurance of the system at scale."

HP abandons futuristic tech for its futuristic supercomputer

HP has abruptly changed course on its 'Machine,' a new type of memory-driven computer it thinks will radically alter large-scale data processing. When the company first launched it last year, the plan was to use a new kind of memory chip called the "memristor," which is as fast as DRAM but can permanently store data.

HP compromises to get groundbreaking Machine to market - SlashGear

The first Machine will have 320 TB of memory, Fink confirmed, well in excess of the 12 TB its current servers top out at.

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Evolution is usually a better way to improve... System architecture of computers needs adjustment for more co-locating of processing and storage and more effective parallel communication, like software actors or lightweight processes in Erlang, implemented in hardware. That may be in category "biologically inspired" but it is essentially engineering optimization. Like a supercomputer made of many smartphones well connected.

HP did something similar before, in later 1990s, when proprietary e-speak protocol was optimized before XML web services "won" by being open and standardized while less optimal.