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The End of Coding

alexn.id.au

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Re: The End of Coding

#71

Post by jcoder »

resu_nimda wrote: post #52
bluesnowmonkey wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Do you think he should have just said "sure man, sounds great, go for it!"

His friend would have made a lot of personal progress in their understanding and abilities.

Re: The End of Coding

#72

Post by dasil003 »

The tools will only improve, but the use of the tools will continue to be restricted to those who are currently coders until we solve AI. The end of coding can only be accomplished by true AI as most humans are not capable of expressing requirements precisely enough for a software program to be generated without a bunch of follow up questions. The primary value of a good software developer is to identify and ask these questions as soon as possible. Writing the code is relatively easy.

Re: The End of Coding

#73

Post by barce »

alexnorth wrote: post #63
antimagic wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, it's kind of tedious seeing these types of article / blog post. As anyone that works as a programmer knows, it's not the grammar of programming that is hard. It's understanding the hardware and what it can do that is hard. It's encoding nebulous and sometimes conflicting business requirements into something a computer can understand that is hard. It's taking into account all of the different error states that a…

I agree with all the things you say are hard: understanding computation, encoding complex requirements, handling edge cases; but typing code into an editor and then re-running your application doesn't provide much support for making them easier. Better tools could help programmers and non-programmers alike work with that complexity much more effectively.

Tools are designed for certain requirements. As the commenter, antimagic, noted, these requirements can conflict. A better tool would definitely have to sort out those conflicts, but at this point we're talking about something like AI.

To talk down the scope of lots of projects, I've always educated a client by saying if certain types of thinking were automated then we'd have to say we were creating AI and that the cost of the project would grow exponentially.

Re: The End of Coding

#74

Post by rwallace »

jcoder wrote: post #71
resu_nimda wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Do you think he should have just said "sure man, sounds great, go for it!" His friend would have made a lot of personal progress in their understanding and abilities.

Learning from your own mistakes is effective, but not efficient. Sometimes it's the best you can do, but when you can learn from other people's mistakes instead, that's a lot better.

Re: The End of Coding

#75

Post by noir_lord »

I'm still waiting for the hard AI we where promised was 10 years away 40 years ago.

These posts beside some hand waving never actually attack the meat of the issue, don't predict the demise of something unless you know what is going to kill it.

Re: The End of Coding

#76

Post by bhewes »

Please, this is like saying no new works of Poetry, Philosophy, Fiction, Drama, Religion will be written. Reminds me of Fukuyama's ridiculous "End of History" argument.

Re: The End of Coding

#78

Post by svantana »

gmjoe wrote: post #35
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…

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…

But that doesn't mean we need to reinvent the wheel every single time. Now look at something like Macaw and tell me that doesn't look like a useful tool: http://macaw.co/peek/

Re: The End of Coding

#79

Post by dsego »

gmjoe wrote: post #35
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…

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…

The idea is to build a tool that better fits the problem domain. In this example a visual tool lifts the burden of remembering specific CSS syntax, HEX codes or browser inconsistencies. In turn it's easier for a designer to worry about more interesting stuff, like reflows or responsive layouts. I have great hopes for visual web tools, such as Macaw. I think it will really take off when we get reusable HTML/JS components.

Re: The End of Coding

#80

Post by svantana »

georgemcbay wrote: post #77

Eventually we will be obsoleted by the machines, but this will not happen soon and we'll be the second last to go (entertainers will be the last).

But before that, we will have some pretty amazing tools that will make us feel like magicians (regrettably for all too short a time though)
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