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It’s conceivable that in the future, coding will be so easy it won’t exist as a specialized job anymore. Consider how the web dev career of making websites for

It’s conceivable that in the future, coding will be so easy it won’t exist as a specialized job anymore. Consider how the web dev career of making websites for small local businesses has been substantially replaced by squarespace, which can be thought of as a tool for which the input is a very high level specification and the output is html/css/js/backend code. And the specification is high level enough that you can ask your mom to use it - it won’t shock me if we see this happen to more industries

JohnAaronNelson 5y ago
Speaking as a web developer, the need seems to be increasing despite the plethora of available no-code tools. Meanwhile, no-code websites seem to be locking people out of their walled gardens evermore (Facebook Groups is horrid)
drunkpotato 5y ago
It's possible, but I'm skeptical, because the hard part of coding isn't "typing words into a text editor/IDE." It's thinking algorithmically in enough detail, with edge cases, fallbacks, error handling, etc, that most people struggle with. Squarespace is actually a good example; someone still has to write all the nifty widgets and figure out how they'll work together for a pleasing experience. If putting an attractive visual layer on top of code was all it took, then Smalltalk would have won decades ago and everyone would program. The main barrier to "no code" and "everyone can program" is still the mode of thought, not the mode of representation. This has parallels in artificial intelligence, where as soon as a problem is solvable by a computer, solving the problem no longer counts as "AI" (chess, natural language processing, even sentiment analysis!). Similarly, as soon as a problem is made easy and accessible to non-algorithmic thinks, programmer move on to the next thing that requires that mode of thought. Maybe we'll exhaust the problem space of potential programs someday, but I don't see any evidence for it.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  > It's thinking algorithmically in enough detail, with edge cases, fallbacks, error handling, etc, that most people struggle with. And this is why we need better languages, not better editors. Python was the last real language to bring prepackaged solutions that are easy to use and cover (some) edge cases to reduce development overhead. Adding a use-specific framework, such as Django, often takes care of the remaining 80%. I'd love to see a new language or framework that makes adding new features - not features that the framework devs created but rather real new features - easy to code would be a boon to development.
dotancohen 5y ago
Tools like squarespace increase the pool of generic copy-cutter websites. They do not reduce the pool specialized, purpose-written websites, which still require a software developer. In fact, by providing an entry point into an online presence, squarespace and other click-to-get-online products may actually increase the pool of businesses interested in migrating to a specialized, purpose-written website as they expand past the capabilities that squarespace offer them.
- emerongi 5y ago
  Notably, a large percentage of the users of squarespace were probably never going to hire a web developer for a website in the first place, as it has always been too expensive. Squarespace is its own market, with a very small impact on full-time web developers. A mom-and-pop shop can have a website now and no web developer lost their job because of that.
blackbear_ 5y ago
Websites and generic CRUD apps are domains that are very well understood, hence easy to automate when you don't have special needs. But high level specifications will not suffice as soon as the domain is less clear, less well understood, and/or less static. In fact, a sizeable part of software developers' jobs is to clarify ambiguous/unclear/contraddicting requirements coming from from business analysts and project managers. So yes, easy stuff will be automated, as in many other industries, but this will create new possibilities that only specialized developers will be able to pursue.

JohnAaronNelson 5y ago

Speaking as a web developer, the need seems to be increasing despite the plethora of available no-code tools. Meanwhile, no-code websites seem to be locking people out of their walled gardens evermore (Facebook Groups is horrid)

drunkpotato 5y ago

It's possible, but I'm skeptical, because the hard part of coding isn't "typing words into a text editor/IDE." It's thinking algorithmically in enough detail, with edge cases, fallbacks, error handling, etc, that most people struggle with. Squarespace is actually a good example; someone still has to write all the nifty widgets and figure out how they'll work together for a pleasing experience. If putting an attractive visual layer on top of code was all it took, then Smalltalk would have won decades ago and everyone would program. The main barrier to "no code" and "everyone can program" is still the mode of thought, not the mode of representation. This has parallels in artificial intelligence, where as soon as a problem is solvable by a computer, solving the problem no longer counts as "AI" (chess, natural language processing, even sentiment analysis!). Similarly, as soon as a problem is made easy and accessible to non-algorithmic thinks, programmer move on to the next thing that requires that mode of thought. Maybe we'll exhaust the problem space of potential programs someday, but I don't see any evidence for it.

dotancohen 5y ago
> It's thinking algorithmically in enough detail, with edge cases, fallbacks, error handling, etc, that most people struggle with. And this is why we need better languages, not better editors. Python was the last real language to bring prepackaged solutions that are easy to use and cover (some) edge cases to reduce development overhead. Adding a use-specific framework, such as Django, often takes care of the remaining 80%. I'd love to see a new language or framework that makes adding new features - not features that the framework devs created but rather real new features - easy to code would be a boon to development.

dotancohen 5y ago

Tools like squarespace increase the pool of generic copy-cutter websites. They do not reduce the pool specialized, purpose-written websites, which still require a software developer. In fact, by providing an entry point into an online presence, squarespace and other click-to-get-online products may actually increase the pool of businesses interested in migrating to a specialized, purpose-written website as they expand past the capabilities that squarespace offer them.

emerongi 5y ago
Notably, a large percentage of the users of squarespace were probably never going to hire a web developer for a website in the first place, as it has always been too expensive. Squarespace is its own market, with a very small impact on full-time web developers. A mom-and-pop shop can have a website now and no web developer lost their job because of that.

blackbear_ 5y ago

Websites and generic CRUD apps are domains that are very well understood, hence easy to automate when you don't have special needs. But high level specifications will not suffice as soon as the domain is less clear, less well understood, and/or less static. In fact, a sizeable part of software developers' jobs is to clarify ambiguous/unclear/contraddicting requirements coming from from business analysts and project managers. So yes, easy stuff will be automated, as in many other industries, but this will create new possibilities that only specialized developers will be able to pursue.