3 ms·

> I feel that the core of programming, just making the computer do things other people want it to for money, will always lead us back to a highly individualize

> I feel that the core of programming, just making the computer do things other people want it to for money, will always lead us back to a highly individualized workflow I would be willing to bet against that. In fact, it's safe to bet that "always X" is false regardless of X, especially when humans are in that equation. "Always" is a very long time :)

tboyd47 9y ago
I'm not a betting man, but history tends to repeat itself. If you read some of what was written in the 70s and 80s about programming, you often find certainty that programming is going to be commoditized and standardized within our lifetimes. I read one book where the author (who's very well-known in the CS world) was sure that by year 2000, we would have a standard catalog of programming tasks with labor estimates similar to what auto mechanics have. If anything, I think we're even further away from this now than we were in the 80s. It would be hard to find anyone who can even imagine such a catalog, much less create one.
- virgilp 9y ago
  I heard an anecdote that in the late '60s someone put a bunch of interns in a room with with a few computers & digital camera to solve the object detection problem - he figured they'd be done by the end of the summer. 30 years later, that looked very much impossible to do. But 50 years later, it was eventually solved. Like I said - "always"/"never" are very long time periods...
  - mindcrime 9y ago
    This may refer to the project you mention there. http://www.lyndonhill.com/opinion-cvlegends.html http://www.lyndonhill.com/opinion-cvlegends.html
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    > But 50 years later, it was eventually solved. We've made progress, but I'd hesitate calling it "solved".
- 8bitsrule 9y ago
  In the late 1970s, I was the only teacher with programming experience in a system. I will never forget the words of my superintendent, coming back from a conference in Arizona. The experts at the conference told everyone that the world wouldn't need many programmers in a few years. And so, he had concluded, the school wouldn't need more than the two Apple IIs it had borrowed.

tboyd47 9y ago

I'm not a betting man, but history tends to repeat itself. If you read some of what was written in the 70s and 80s about programming, you often find certainty that programming is going to be commoditized and standardized within our lifetimes. I read one book where the author (who's very well-known in the CS world) was sure that by year 2000, we would have a standard catalog of programming tasks with labor estimates similar to what auto mechanics have. If anything, I think we're even further away from this now than we were in the 80s. It would be hard to find anyone who can even imagine such a catalog, much less create one.

virgilp 9y ago
I heard an anecdote that in the late '60s someone put a bunch of interns in a room with with a few computers & digital camera to solve the object detection problem - he figured they'd be done by the end of the summer. 30 years later, that looked very much impossible to do. But 50 years later, it was eventually solved. Like I said - "always"/"never" are very long time periods...
- mindcrime 9y ago
  This may refer to the project you mention there. http://www.lyndonhill.com/opinion-cvlegends.html http://www.lyndonhill.com/opinion-cvlegends.html
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > But 50 years later, it was eventually solved. We've made progress, but I'd hesitate calling it "solved".
8bitsrule 9y ago
In the late 1970s, I was the only teacher with programming experience in a system. I will never forget the words of my superintendent, coming back from a conference in Arizona. The experts at the conference told everyone that the world wouldn't need many programmers in a few years. And so, he had concluded, the school wouldn't need more than the two Apple IIs it had borrowed.