Computing Paradigms

The vision of Project Oxygen at MIT is to make computing more human-centered and freely available like oxygen in the air we breathe. Computing is the basic tenet of digital media. It is already quite pervasive in many parts of the world. Not surprisingly, there is a great deal of enthusiasm amongst many business firms these days to find new and innovative ways of influencing people and their lifestyles using digital media. The pace of change seems to introduce new innovation challenges necessitating the emergence and the adoption of diverse computing paradigms.

Shifts in computing paradigms have had significant impact on businesses; Starting with batch computing in the 1960s, these include time-sharing in the 1970s, desktop in the 1980s, and network computing in the 1990s. Some folk consider these paradigms as computing styles that apply to certain problem classes. I have collected a list of popular computing paradigms. The list is slightly redundant and perhaps contains paradigms that functionally overlap.

1. Activity-based Computing
2. Agent Based Computing
3. Aspect Oriented Computing
4. Bio-Inspired Computing(Affective, Autonomic, Cognitive, Evolutionary, and Social Computing)
5. Cluster Computing
6. Collaborative Computing
7. Distributed Computing(Client-Server (flat & tiered)/Peer-to-Peer Computing;Grid/Utility Computing)
8. Embedded Computing
9. Optical Computing
10. Parallel Computing
11. Quantum Computing
12. Recovery-Oriented Computing
13. Service-Oriented Computing
14. Trusted Computing
15. Ubiquitous Computing (Pervasive + Nomadic)

If simplifying is the art of subtracting the obvious and adding more meaning then, perhaps, this is my very simplistic attempt to deal with the diversity of prevailing and upcoming computing paradigms. There is no question that each paradigm is an ocean unto itself. While a lot has already been written and analyzed, keeping up with the pace of change can be intellectually daunting. Who knows which of these is likely to dominate in the future?

I am interested in the technologies associated with these paradigms, along with their context, applications, their current state and envisioned future.

More info about these paradigms coming soon...