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The future is fewer people writing code?

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Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#11

Post by deathcakes »

"To add an example for clarity, think of the field of typography — until the Digital Age, typography was a specialized occupation. But with new programs like Microsoft Word coming into existence, typography (e.g. formatting a document, setting the margins, making sure the lettering is appealing, etc.) became something everyone could do easily without much thinking."

Without much thinking pretty much encapsulates what Word did to presentation standards, at least in my experience. Let us never forget WordArt.

Part of me always wants to make the argument that these things are difficult, not just because of an abstract syntax and arcane rules, but because these things are genuinely difficult to reason about - attempts to make difficult things easier by papering over the cracks results in a lot of pain for a lot of people. Bits ping off and people are left unable to even begin to solve the problem.

However the very, very, obvious flipside of this is that lowering barriers to entry is pretty much always a good thing. It invites unconventional perspectives and novel approaches - how could that be a bad thing? Sure, some people will make crappy things that shouldn't have ever existed but by the same token some people will make great things that never would have been without the lowered barriers.

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#12

Post by Kinnard »

> For instance, to turn a button red, we shouldn’t have to write code. We should just be able to point to the button and select a shade of red.

Someone is going to have to right the code so that the end-user can just click buttons. So if this future of programmatic interfaces is coming, it's going to require more people writing code to build it— not fewer!

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#13

Post by throwaway2016a »

buckbova wrote: post #5

> To get there, programming tools should first use our language. For instance, to turn a button red, we shouldn’t have to write code. We should just be able to point to the button and select a shade of red. We've had that for over twenty years.

Yeah but web developers still tend to do it the "hard way" but editing the CSS directly. Why do web developers still do it that way even though visual tools exist?

My guess is because with working with text is more efficient. The cognitive load of finding a setting in the UI, moving your mouse to it, and selecting the value is far greater than just typing.

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#14

Post by FilterSweep »

madelinecameron wrote: post #7
mattnewton wrote: post #2

I don't know if I agree with the author since they didn't seem to provide any evidence / argument for why the future is codeless. They did warn me though that I wouldn't be able to understand from my vantage point in Silicon Valley though so maybe other people see the argument? But from my perspective code is only growing without showing signs of abating.

First off, I agree. I agree that everyone who continually says "programming" is dying and in 5 - 10 years, "AI" will be writing code (or whatever else they can dream up) have no idea what they are taking about. Programming is definitely going to get easier and I don't doubt that it will become a common skill. I just doubt this idea that professional programming is a dying art or something. It is just silly to say tha…

I believe that:

> It is just silly to say that because tools that lower the barrier of entry are becoming more common, that the entire profession will soon be dead.

Is actually due to Labor Supply vs. Labor Demand. I can envision a world where majority of jobs are all replaced by machines (from Baristas to Accountants), and web/software development (among other fields, such as specialized medicine) are some of the last places for people to remain self-sufficient off their own labor. With this over-abundance of supply, employers are capable of being extremely discretionary over their hires, and are able to pay just enough for their human capital to sustain themselves.

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#15

Post by dkopi »

"The future I imagine is a world in which programming is self-explanatory, where people talk to computers to build software. To get there, programming tools should first use our language."

But is: "For every button on the page that is a "warning" button, replace the background color to red."

Necessarily better than? $("button.warning").css("background-color", "red")

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#16

Post by [deleted] »

xxs wrote: post #9
pmlnr wrote: post #6

“50 years from now, I can’t imagine people programming as we do today. It just can’t be." Dear writer, let me introduce you to FORTRAN, COBOL, LISP, or BASIC. These are alive languages, all 50+ years old. Coding didn't change much. The languages, the methodologies, the ideas change, but the approach is the same, and whoever thinks this will soon (50 years is not _that_ far) changes, have never had to debug something…

you missed assembler; it's still a thing

[deleted]

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#18

Post by throwaway2016a »

I remember going to a mobile conference in the early 2000s and every single vendor there was saying that developing mobile apps using UML was the future. No code, just map out everything in a diagram.

Granted a smart phone was unheard of at this point so most mobile apps wouldn't even be called apps by today's standards.

A decade and a half later and mobile developer is a highly skilled _coding_ position.

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#19

Post by laggyluke »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #13
buckbova wrote: post #5

> To get there, programming tools should first use our language. For instance, to turn a button red, we shouldn’t have to write code. We should just be able to point to the button and select a shade of red. We've had that for over twenty years.

Yeah but web developers still tend to do it the "hard way" but editing the CSS directly. Why do web developers still do it that way even though visual tools exist? My guess is because with working with text is more efficient. The cognitive load of finding a setting in the UI, moving your mouse to it, and selecting the value is far greater than just typing.

Text can be version controlled and diffed.

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#20

Post by mafuyu »

I think the author is missing the forest for the trees, here. Schools often don't have much of a computing curriculum, and these classes are great for improving general programming literacy. And if one kid finds out he really enjoys it when he wouldn't normally have through school, that's a win. It's true that most of them won't become programmers, but we don't teach biology in high school assuming you won't become a biologist, either.
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