The future is fewer people writing code? • Hacker News Board

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#121

Post by maxxxxx » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 7:28 PM UTC

_fwia wrote: post #86

ISL wrote: post #37

Are there graphical languages that advocates like? The only graphical language that I've encountered professionally is LabVIEW, and I've yet to see an instance/programming style where it has been superior for anything but quick prototyping. A language that's editable in both flowchart and traditional formats could be very useful, if executed in a way that doesn't cripple the traditional side of things.

LabVIEW was eerily satisfying to write code in. Or at least some type of code in. Loops and logic blocks got a tiny bit weird, but overall you could do a lot with sub-vis. I find myself craving it even 15 years later.

LabVIEW gets really weird once you get to things like loops or, even worse, threading. You will start craving some good old fashioned code very quickly.

I haven't seen any kind of visual coding environment that didn't fall apart quickly once you got to more complex scenarios.

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#122

Post by maxxxxx » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 7:29 PM UTC

dkopi wrote: post #15

"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")

I have to think of AppleScript "Tell xxx to yyy". That was a real winner :-)

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#123

Post by pessimizer » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 7:30 PM UTC

Thinking that turning buttons red is the major problem of programming is mistaking the interface for the substance. It's as if you wanted to teach people how to develop new automobile technology by selecting the shape of the steering wheel, the fabric in the interior, and the color of the paint job.

The problem with programming is that computers can't understand your intention. What amateur programmers need is side-effect free functions, efficient abstracting away of cores and memory-management, and static analysis that makes functional bugs as obvious as a leak in a plastic bag. Computers will never understand your intention; programmers barely understand your intention and they have a lot more in common with you.

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#124

Post by walshemj » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 7:30 PM UTC

cnfjdnx wrote: post #119

And in this thread you can see programmers getting defensive and flustered over the notion that they too might be vulnerable to automation.

Or recall all the other times a silver bullet has been hyped - first I recall was "the Last One" in the late 70's early 80's

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#125

Post by maker1138 » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 7:32 PM UTC

Programming is done in code for the same reason mathematics is done in notation, for specificity.

Doing programming in plain English would be just as cumbersome as doing math in plain English.

I don't think anyone can quite fully imagine the nightmare of trying to program in a recursively enumerable language[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#126

Post by ewzimm » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 7:32 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #72

ewzimm wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't necessarily judge the future of of a technology by its past. Consider transportation. Imagine it's 1936, automobiles have been around for 50 years, but there are still plenty of people getting around by horse. Some people are claiming that in another 50 years, by 1986, horses will be hardly used for transportation compared to cars, other people say that horses have been used for thousands of years, there's…

Your example actually cuts the other way. Imagine it's 1966 and someone tells you that the cars, trains, and planes will " have to be dramatically different in 50 years," yet lo and behold a trip from NYC to LA takes about the same amount of time now as it did back then and the Northeast Regional is a hair slower than the Metroliner used to be.

I was focusing on 50 years into the development of the technology as a rough analogy. By 1966 it was much more mature, but look at how much things have changed. A mechanic from 1966 would find today's cars completely unrecognizable. They might appear somewhat similar from the outside, but on the inside they're basically just giant computers. We now have cars with varying levels of self-driving capabilities, drones replacing pilots, traditional pilots being essentially babysitters for autopilot systems, hyperloop designs. I'd say those are much bigger changes than 1936-1986.

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#127

Post by pessimizer » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 7:33 PM UTC

ewzimm wrote: post #106

foota wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an important distinction though between being able to write a compiling (or even functional) program and being able to write a program that serves a particular purpose.

I'm talking about human-guided programming without using traditional programming language, creating a design document to lay out what it does and how data flows and allowing the computer to sort out the details based on a stored data set.

Why do you assume that this design document would be simpler to create than the traditional computer program? Because otherwise, this is exactly what happens now.

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#128

Post by mooreds » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 7:33 PM UTC

paavokoya wrote: post #68

nickbauman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are currently no signs that what you think will happen will happen. Soft AI is the only place where anything is moving on that front and the movement is infinitesimally small. Here's an analogy for you: It took more than 1000 years (from Babylon to Archaic Greece) for us to go from writing with only consonants to using vowels for the first time.

> It took more than 1000 years (from Babylon to Archaic Greece) for us to go from writing with only consonants to using vowels for the first time Yeah and it took "us" 60 years from discovering flight to landing a rocket on the moon. Took "us" 60 years from the first computer to globally-live video streaming in your pocket. Time is a pointless metric when it comes to technology. You don't know what someone is cooking…

I wonder if 'leisure-person years' is a better metric of progress (where 'leisure' is defined as the number of hours you can spend neither raising/searching for food nor sleeping).

Be really hard to identify, though.

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#129

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 7:36 PM UTC

ewzimm wrote: post #106

foota wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an important distinction though between being able to write a compiling (or even functional) program and being able to write a program that serves a particular purpose.

I'm talking about human-guided programming without using traditional programming language, creating a design document to lay out what it does and how data flows and allowing the computer to sort out the details based on a stored data set.

> I'm talking about human-guided programming without using traditional programming language, creating a design document to lay out what it does and how data flows and allowing the computer to sort out the details based on a stored data set.

Creating clear and accurate design documents is so much harder and more specialized a skill than programming that many places that do programming either avoid it entirely or make a pro-forma gesture (often after-the-fact) in its direction.

(I am only about half-kidding on the reasoning, and not at all about the effect.)

Re: The future is fewer people writing code?

#130

Post by pessimizer » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 7:36 PM UTC

cglee wrote: post #78

Iv wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50 years from now, I can't imagine people driving cars as we do today. I do know that human-operated cars are old, but it does not mean that we can't do better nowadays.

drivers:users::mechanics:programmers

And designing cars hasn't become easier, it's become exponentially harder as we demand more from them.