Wow #4 is a really good question. Your examples from the past all sound a little bit like "people using tools that seemed at first like toys but turned out to be really important."
Your guesses for the future don't quite fit that description except maybe the cloud stuff, but that's actually gotten pretty mainstream. It might have been a good example from 5 years or so ago.
Thinking about it some the best thing I can come up with is interpreted/dynamically typed programming languages. It pains me to say this though because I kind of believe in my core that compiled/strongly typed languages are the way to go for large projects. But maybe that's just me holding on to the past? I'm not sure.
Your guesses for the future don't quite fit that description except maybe the cloud stuff, but that's actually gotten pretty mainstream. It might have been a good example from 5 years or so ago.
Thinking about it some the best thing I can come up with is interpreted/dynamically typed programming languages. It pains me to say this though because I kind of believe in my core that compiled/strongly typed languages are the way to go for large projects. But maybe that's just me holding on to the past? I'm not sure.
Really really good question.