3 ms·

Sounds like it was described accurately at the time. What's ridiculous?

by p1esk 6y ago

gumby 6y ago
"Ridiculous" was a joke, taking the fantastical claims about FORTRAN as true (thus it's "ridiculous" to imagine the problem going away in a decade when it has already been solved for over 60 years). I first saw this claim 20 years after that (in the late 70s) and have seen it pretty regularly since. FORTRAN did expand the set of people able to write code, but it still required as much rigor as before. And the claim has always been true in trivial cases: famously secretaries who "couldn't program" were writing Emacs macros at MIT in the 70s. Visicalc and now Excel allow people who don't believe they can program to write reasonably complex programs, but it quickly becomes unmanageable, undebuggable spaghetti. IDEs have long been touted as programming-eliminators, but the code they generate has always been brittle and limited, and in the end...can do only trivial things. Sure, at some point many scriptable or programmable objects may be composable by people without training, but we will need human programmers until machines themselves are at least as smart as humans.
- p1esk 6y ago
  FORTRAN did expand the set of people able to write code, but it still required as much rigor as before How far this set of people should expand for software development to become like driving, which still requires rigor, but is accessible to almost everyone? Do you see this happening as a result of the latest AI breakthroughs, or are there any other fundamental challenges?
  - gumby 6y ago
    As the last 20 years of AI research has ignored semantics I can't see it helping in a significant way. I suspect it will be a while after driving requires zero rigor (or even participation) before computers could program themselves. Frankly, given how hard it is to explain to another human how to do something why should we expect smart computers to be easier to manage? Unless...we use a highly structured manner of issuing instructions...i.e. a programming language!
Rury 6y ago
The fact that it didn't make software developers obsolete. Instead it created a whole new breed of 'specialized' software developers - ones that knew Fortran. This is the fundamental problem with "they are going to automate our jobs!" thing people seemingly fear. Sure automation may make old jobs obsolete, but it also spawns new jobs in their place. Before the invention of cars - there were no auto mechanics. Before the invention of telephones - there were no telephone operators. Before the invention of the internet - there were no web developers. Before ATMs - there were surely more teller jobs in existence. But with ATMs, someone is now needed to go around and stock these ATMs with money periodically, as well as someone to repair them occasionally - both of which can be viewed as a new kind of "teller". As so, software developers will never become obsolete. It's just the way in which we execute our jobs, which may become obsolete...
- p1esk 6y ago
  So, if a user says "create a website that does x, y, z", and describes in plain English, on a high level, how he wants this website to look like, and AI creates the website which does what the user wanted, does this mean this user is now a "software developer"? Because the only requirement for the new breed of 'specialized' software developers might be they know English.
  - Rury 6y ago
    >does this mean this user is now a "software developer"? Sure. He developed software - who cares what tools he used to do it? Is a farmer who farms via tractor not a farmer? The OP gave an apt example in FORTRAN - as FORTRAN is literally something which automates writing (lower level) code for you. Are software developers who use FORTRAN not software developers? >Because the only requirement for the new breed of 'specialized' software developers might be they know English. You assume everyone knows 'English'. To my knowledge only ~20% of the world "knows" basic English - let alone the specific English required to instruct an AI to craft a website precisely to do what you want it to do.

Sounds like it was described accurately at the time. What's ridiculous?

by p1esk 6y ago

Sounds like it was described accurately at the time. What's ridiculous?

"Ridiculous" was a joke, taking the fantastical claims about FORTRAN as true (thus it's "ridiculous" to imagine the problem going away in a decade when it has already been solved for over 60 years). I first saw this claim 20 years after that (in the late 70s) and have seen it pretty regularly since. FORTRAN did expand the set of people able to write code, but it still required as much rigor as before. And the claim has always been true in trivial cases: famously secretaries who "couldn't program" were writing Emacs macros at MIT in the 70s. Visicalc and now Excel allow people who don't believe they can program to write reasonably complex programs, but it quickly becomes unmanageable, undebuggable spaghetti. IDEs have long been touted as programming-eliminators, but the code they generate has always been brittle and limited, and in the end...can do only trivial things. Sure, at some point many scriptable or programmable objects may be composable by people without training, but we will need human programmers until machines themselves are at least as smart as humans.

p1esk 6y ago
FORTRAN did expand the set of people able to write code, but it still required as much rigor as before How far this set of people should expand for software development to become like driving, which still requires rigor, but is accessible to almost everyone? Do you see this happening as a result of the latest AI breakthroughs, or are there any other fundamental challenges?
- gumby 6y ago
  As the last 20 years of AI research has ignored semantics I can't see it helping in a significant way. I suspect it will be a while after driving requires zero rigor (or even participation) before computers could program themselves. Frankly, given how hard it is to explain to another human how to do something why should we expect smart computers to be easier to manage? Unless...we use a highly structured manner of issuing instructions...i.e. a programming language!

Rury 6y ago

The fact that it didn't make software developers obsolete. Instead it created a whole new breed of 'specialized' software developers - ones that knew Fortran. This is the fundamental problem with "they are going to automate our jobs!" thing people seemingly fear. Sure automation may make old jobs obsolete, but it also spawns new jobs in their place. Before the invention of cars - there were no auto mechanics. Before the invention of telephones - there were no telephone operators. Before the invention of the internet - there were no web developers. Before ATMs - there were surely more teller jobs in existence. But with ATMs, someone is now needed to go around and stock these ATMs with money periodically, as well as someone to repair them occasionally - both of which can be viewed as a new kind of "teller". As so, software developers will never become obsolete. It's just the way in which we execute our jobs, which may become obsolete...

p1esk 6y ago
So, if a user says "create a website that does x, y, z", and describes in plain English, on a high level, how he wants this website to look like, and AI creates the website which does what the user wanted, does this mean this user is now a "software developer"? Because the only requirement for the new breed of 'specialized' software developers might be they know English.
- Rury 6y ago
  >does this mean this user is now a "software developer"? Sure. He developed software - who cares what tools he used to do it? Is a farmer who farms via tractor not a farmer? The OP gave an apt example in FORTRAN - as FORTRAN is literally something which automates writing (lower level) code for you. Are software developers who use FORTRAN not software developers? >Because the only requirement for the new breed of 'specialized' software developers might be they know English. You assume everyone knows 'English'. To my knowledge only ~20% of the world "knows" basic English - let alone the specific English required to instruct an AI to craft a website precisely to do what you want it to do.