As interest grows rapidly in industry on the potentialities of mathematical programming techniques, it appears worthwhile to have a paper devoted to some of the more promising developments which may speed up the transition from interest to use. Three topics have been selected (in three sections that follow) which have recently come into prominence: uncertainty, combinatorial problems, and large scale systems. The reader will find in the course of their discussions that a survey--though perhaps not a systematic survey--has been made of current techniques in the linear programming field.