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The End of Coding

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Re: The End of Coding

#51

Post by xntrk »

Every time I see a article like this I think back to my frist programming class in high school. The teacher asked us a simple homework question. Describe all of the steps it takes to make a sandwich.

This seems like a simple task. Get all the ingredients and put them together. This is simple to explain to human because they can make choices on their own and generally understand how a food is constructed. But when are are trying to teach a robot how to make a sandwich you have to exaplain every little detail because it doesn't understand that bread comes in a plastic bag or how to open it, or where the fridge is, or not make the sandwich on the floor.

Everyone in the class got the question wrong because they were all missing details.

I believe that code is going to be around for a very long time because it is currently the only way to truely express 'exactly' what you mean.

Re: The End of Coding

#52

Post by resu_nimda »

bluesnowmonkey wrote: post #49
gmjoe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I remember, once a friend wanted to create a tool for designers to use for creating HTML+CSS visually, without having to know actual CSS properties and such. Then I explained, the hard part of laying out webpages is not the basic layout -- it's how layout reflows when text overflows, when the browser window is too narrow, when image sizes change, what things maintain alignment and what things don't -- and th…

It's a good thing you talked your friend down from creating something. The world has too many creators as it is. Don't they know that everything good has been created already? If it hasn't been done then it isn't possible!

Did you have a point here? Do you think he should have just said "sure man, sounds great, go for it!" Did you know that a lot of non-programmers have a lot of great ideas, and that educating them about the difficulties of implementing those ideas isn't actually a bad thing?

The particular app in question has been tried a million times and countless hours have been invested into it, perhaps learning from that body of work would be helpful? But hey, maybe that guy is The One who will come out of nowhere and solve the problem in a completely new manner (half-serious - it's technically possible, but I don't think it's useful to put our eggs in that basket).

Re: The End of Coding

#53

Post by williamcotton »

Spreadsheets work better than code in some instances. Visual data-flow (boxes and noodles) in some instances. Graphing calculators in others. Hell, even Morphic and VB have their place!

Each of these tools creates a 'function' in some way or another. The main problem I see is that it is too hard to make a function in a spreadsheet, combine it with a function made in a data-flow graph editor, and all tied together with a function made in a text coding language.

We need to make the publishing and consumption of 'functions' easier. I've started the work on the underlying framework. Please stay tuned!

Re: The End of Coding

#55

Post by ilaksh »

I know that everyone will disagree, but for the most part, programmers shouldn't be writing code either. There are a lot of good tools out there. The problem is that programming by definition is writing code. And tools that don't involve code are for non-programmers.

The problem is the definition of programming. And the fact that people are afraid they won't be considered a 'real' programmer if they don't write cryptic code.

I believe that right around the time that programmers start to figure that out, general AIs will come out about 1.5 times as smart as the smartest human, and at that point ordinary human's childish perspectives and problems won't be very relevant.

Re: The End of Coding

#56

Post by normloman »

Regular people have a hard enough time doing every day tasks on the computer with GUIs. If we can't make regular work easy, how the hell do you expect to make programming easy?

Re: The End of Coding

#57

Post by consultant23522 »

I feel like what companies mean when they say that children should learn to program is that they should learn problem solving and critical thinking skills. In my experience these things are saved for only the children who are tested and marked as "gifted" but average joe should also benefit greatly from a healthy dose of learning these skills.

Re: The End of Coding

#58

Post by marcosdumay »

jackmaney wrote: post #26

Ah yes, the end of coding is inevitable, the PC is dead, and 2013 will surely become the year of the Linux desktop.

> 2013 will surely become the year of the Linux desktop

There's still a non-zero chance that this one come true. It does not fit well within the others.

Re: The End of Coding

#59

Post by gruseom »

Zigurd wrote: post #40

I was about to respond to his claims by pointing out that spreadsheets are a gateway drug for coding and that everyone who tries to do things without coding ends up coding. Code is remarkably universal. The article claims spreadsheets are an example of a post-coding tool, but they, and his other examples, really aren't. Notably, "visual programming" has been a failure. I expect the end of coding to be presaged by thi…

I agree that spreadsheets count as programming, since formulas are code. But spreadsheets also add a memory model (cell references) and a UI (rows and columns), and these three things are all smushed together, or rather overlap perfectly, while in general-purpose programming they are independent and there is no such overlap. That's perhaps what makes spreadsheets simpler and more accessible.

Re: The End of Coding

#60

Post by wpietri »

wes-exp wrote: post #50
jtheory wrote: post #10

I feel like I've been reading this article every year, with some variation but the same yet-unrealized potential every time. I'm not an expert in "human" coding or AI, but I get the same vibe from both of them -- until you try it yourself, it seems pretty reasonable that someone will solve this problem fairly soon. And it has seemed that way for many years now. Simple CRUD apps can already be built with simple, frien…

The belief that better tools will obsolete the need for all that coding effort is probably as old as computer programming itself. Fred Brooks, author of The Mythical Man-Month , dismissed the idea in his 1986 paper No Silver Bullet : "... building software will always be hard. There is no silver bullet." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_silver_bullet

It's certainly at lest 30 years old. Before my voice changed I went to my first computer conference. People were selling tools there that would let business types do "programming" via just writing what they want in English. For minicomputers.

Of course, they had to write in a minimal, highly structured pseudo-English. And the problem domain was highly restricted. So it was basically programming, except less effective.

A fine example of the phenomenon that if enough people want something, somebody will come along and sell it to them, whether or not it actually works. I used to think this was malice, but as far as I can tell, greed, narcissism, and the Dunning-Kruger effect can explain it perfectly well.

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