StateOfTheArt is where we are now - practice as opposed to theory,
WhatIs as opposed to W
hatOughtBe.
For the topics covered in
WikiWiki,
StateOfTheArt is probably best measured in terms of the available and commonly used
SystemsSoftware application platforms of the year and the features embedded therein. This includes programming languages, paradigms, operating systems, middleware, standard protocols (TCP, IP, HTTP 1.1, SSL), standard data transport formats (e.g. ASCII, UTF-8, HTML 4.01, YAML 1.2, XML), standard data persistence systems (RDBMS,
FileSystems), etc.
Some
ComputerScientists put a lot of effort into advancing
StateOfTheArt. They look for the
KillerOperatingSystem, the
NewOsFeatures, aim to
KillMutableState or perhaps make
SoftwareTransactionalMemory and
ResumableExceptions available to everyone, hope to embed more
KeyLanguageFeatures and examine
FileSystemAlternatives. And so on.
Other programmers are more professionals in a craft and use today's
StateOfTheArt to produce useful and competitive software products. One shouldn't confuse advanced features, even those proven experimentally, with
StateOfTheArt. It's these craftsmen, masters and otherwise, who
define StateOfTheArt in any given year.
See
StateOfTheArtLanguages,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_the_art