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> Who needs to code when you can use visual building blocks or even plain English to describe intent? Stopped reading there, despite predictions this has not h

by phpnode 11y ago

> Who needs to code when you can use visual building blocks or even plain English to describe intent? Stopped reading there, despite predictions this has not happened in the last 20 years and I see no evidence that it will happen in the next 20.

gaius 11y ago
Back in the day I worked with a project manager who would edit a spec in Word and save it, not tell anyone she'd done it, then be angry the next day when she launched the software and it hadn't changed. Because that's how plain English programming works: magic elves.
- fsloth 11y ago
  That's an amazing lack of skills on so many levels.
  - gaius 11y ago
    She was probably paid double what I was too. I had another colleague at a different job, a chemistry PhD so (on paper at least) a smart guy, but he genuinely could not get his head around the idea that software was something that was written. Software was something that was found and the skill was like the skill of being a gold prospector in the hills panning for that program that would do what you wanted.
bilch 11y ago
More like the last 50 or 60 years: "the programming occupation will become extinct (through the further development of self-programming techniques)" (Herbert A. Simon, 1961, and the notion seems to be even older, cf. Janet Abbate's "Re-Coding Gender", page 74-75) From the same book (p. 84): "Stephanie Shirley, who started a contract programming company in the early 1960s, later recalled: 'When COBOL was introduced, we thought that would be the end of the company, that nobody would be buying software anymore – programming – because it was just so easy.'"
scotty79 11y ago
Like good enough voice recognition? The fact that we dreamed about computers and robots since first mechanical automatons, perhaps earlier and for many years we couldn't crack it doesn't mean that we haven't and we won't. I think the author is wrong but not because we won't have visual building blocks and flexible language interfaces. Rather because event if you try to describe what you induction cooking plate does for you using visual building blocks and English language you still end up with pretty tangled mess that only real programmer could have patience for.
- phpnode 11y ago
  > even if you try to describe what you induction cooking plate does for you using visual building blocks and English language you still end up with pretty tangled mess that only real programmer could have patience for. Sorry, I should have been less succinct - I totally agree with you, visual languages already exist and are improving all the time. I don't believe that they will lead to a world without programmers for the reasons you state. They are just another way to express syntax, they don't reduce the complexity of the actual problem being solved.
- djur 11y ago
  Voice recognition is not "good enough" yet. It is better at simple commands than it used to be, and more ubiquitous, but it is still incredibly limited. Frankly, it's right up there with visual programming as a technology that's been touted as 5-10 years away from a breakthrough for decades.

by phpnode 11y ago

gaius 11y ago

Back in the day I worked with a project manager who would edit a spec in Word and save it, not tell anyone she'd done it, then be angry the next day when she launched the software and it hadn't changed. Because that's how plain English programming works: magic elves.

fsloth 11y ago
That's an amazing lack of skills on so many levels.
- gaius 11y ago
  She was probably paid double what I was too. I had another colleague at a different job, a chemistry PhD so (on paper at least) a smart guy, but he genuinely could not get his head around the idea that software was something that was written. Software was something that was found and the skill was like the skill of being a gold prospector in the hills panning for that program that would do what you wanted.

bilch 11y ago

More like the last 50 or 60 years: "the programming occupation will become extinct (through the further development of self-programming techniques)" (Herbert A. Simon, 1961, and the notion seems to be even older, cf. Janet Abbate's "Re-Coding Gender", page 74-75) From the same book (p. 84): "Stephanie Shirley, who started a contract programming company in the early 1960s, later recalled: 'When COBOL was introduced, we thought that would be the end of the company, that nobody would be buying software anymore – programming – because it was just so easy.'"

scotty79 11y ago

Like good enough voice recognition? The fact that we dreamed about computers and robots since first mechanical automatons, perhaps earlier and for many years we couldn't crack it doesn't mean that we haven't and we won't. I think the author is wrong but not because we won't have visual building blocks and flexible language interfaces. Rather because event if you try to describe what you induction cooking plate does for you using visual building blocks and English language you still end up with pretty tangled mess that only real programmer could have patience for.

phpnode 11y ago
> even if you try to describe what you induction cooking plate does for you using visual building blocks and English language you still end up with pretty tangled mess that only real programmer could have patience for. Sorry, I should have been less succinct - I totally agree with you, visual languages already exist and are improving all the time. I don't believe that they will lead to a world without programmers for the reasons you state. They are just another way to express syntax, they don't reduce the complexity of the actual problem being solved.
djur 11y ago
Voice recognition is not "good enough" yet. It is better at simple commands than it used to be, and more ubiquitous, but it is still incredibly limited. Frankly, it's right up there with visual programming as a technology that's been touted as 5-10 years away from a breakthrough for decades.