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I’ve heard the story that SQL was originally sold as a language that non tech people could use to query databases. It’s mostly an utter failure at that, yet sti

I’ve heard the story that SQL was originally sold as a language that non tech people could use to query databases. It’s mostly an utter failure at that, yet still immensely popular. I’m expecting a similar future for AI, it will not deliver the “deprecating devs” part but it will still be a useful and ubiquitous tool.

badgersnake 1y ago
The hype cycle has priced in a paradigm shift, not gradual efficiency improvements. From that perspective a large correction is on the way.
rsynnott 1y ago
Yeah, it was a 4GL. Roughly since the 1950s, every ten years or so someone has come along with “this will allow unskilled people to write programs, and destroy those awful programmers forever” (_COBOL_ was originally basically marketed as this!) SQL is by _far_ the most successful thing to actually come out of this recurrent trend, in that it is actually useful, and unskilled people can actually use it to an extent. Most of the rest of it, 4GLs and 5GLs and drag and drop programming and no-code and… was just kinda useless; at most it made for a good demo, but attempts to make actual workable maintainable software with it broke down fast.
- antonvs 1y ago
  It's interesting that there's been that constant drumbeat - for at least about half a century at this point - about eliminating software developers, yet somehow we don't get the same messaging about eliminating, say, civil engineers.
  - Disposal8433 1y ago
    > eliminating software developers I must write a "me too" here because I have seen this a lot recently on various sites. Whether it comes from managers or non-coders (I guess astrosurfing managers), it's always about those awful developers gate-keeping software development with their complicated compiled languages. I know it's all fake but it's exhausting, and it's nice to see it acknowledged here on HN.
    - antonvs 1y ago
      Illegitimi non carborundum
  - rsynnott 1y ago
    Don’t give them ideas. Whatever about vibe-coding, we really, really do not want vibe-railways.
lomase 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-generation_programming_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-generation_programming_... It was all the hype at the time, like LLMs are now. Most of them died because it was a bad idea. And the reason we still use some, like SQL, is not because of the sintaxt.

badgersnake 1y ago

The hype cycle has priced in a paradigm shift, not gradual efficiency improvements. From that perspective a large correction is on the way.

rsynnott 1y ago

Yeah, it was a 4GL. Roughly since the 1950s, every ten years or so someone has come along with “this will allow unskilled people to write programs, and destroy those awful programmers forever” (_COBOL_ was originally basically marketed as this!) SQL is by _far_ the most successful thing to actually come out of this recurrent trend, in that it is actually useful, and unskilled people can actually use it to an extent. Most of the rest of it, 4GLs and 5GLs and drag and drop programming and no-code and… was just kinda useless; at most it made for a good demo, but attempts to make actual workable maintainable software with it broke down fast.

antonvs 1y ago
It's interesting that there's been that constant drumbeat - for at least about half a century at this point - about eliminating software developers, yet somehow we don't get the same messaging about eliminating, say, civil engineers.
- Disposal8433 1y ago
  > eliminating software developers I must write a "me too" here because I have seen this a lot recently on various sites. Whether it comes from managers or non-coders (I guess astrosurfing managers), it's always about those awful developers gate-keeping software development with their complicated compiled languages. I know it's all fake but it's exhausting, and it's nice to see it acknowledged here on HN.
  - antonvs 1y ago
    Illegitimi non carborundum
- rsynnott 1y ago
  Don’t give them ideas. Whatever about vibe-coding, we really, really do not want vibe-railways.

lomase 1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-generation_programming_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-generation_programming_... It was all the hype at the time, like LLMs are now. Most of them died because it was a bad idea. And the reason we still use some, like SQL, is not because of the sintaxt.