4 ms·
When COBOL was born, some people said, "It's English! We won't need programmers anymore!" When SQL was born, some people said, "It's English! We won't need pro
by pteetor 1y ago
When COBOL was born, some people said, "It's English! We won't need programmers anymore!"
When SQL was born, some people said, "It's English! We won't need programmers anymore!"
Now we have AI prompting, and some people are saying, "It's English! We won't need programmers anymore!"
Really?
- Legend2440 1y agoThe problem I have with this argument is that it actually is English this time. COBOL and SQL aren't English, they're formal languages with keywords that look like English. LLMs work with informal language in a way that computers have never been able to before.
- skydhash 1y agoSay that to the prompt guys and their AGENT.md rules. Formalism is way easier than whatever this guys are concocting. And true programmer bliss is live programming. Common programming is like writing a sheet music and having someone else play it. Live programming is you at the instrument tweaking each part.
- saxenaabhi 1y agoYes natural languages are by nature ambiguous. Sometimes it's better to write specification in code rather than in a natural language(Jetbrains MPS for example).
- layer8 1y agoOn the other hand, the problem is exactly that it’s not a formal language.
- Legend2440 1y agoThis is also a strength. Formal languages struggle to work with concepts that cannot be precisely defined, which are especially common in the physical world. e.g. it is difficult to write a traditional program to wash dishes, because how do you formally define a dish? You can only show examples of dishes and not-dishes. This is where informal language and neural networks shine.
- filoeleven 1y agoI can't wait to bring a whole restaurant's dishwashing to a halt with an adversarial plate that has some droplets of paint on it the color of steak sauce.
- moritzwarhier 1y agoThis is true. But in faithful adherence to some kind of uncertainty principle, LLM prompts are also not a programming language, no matter if you turn down the temperature to zero and use a specialized coding model. They can just use programming languages as their output.
- sharadov 1y agoI can't agree more.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- names_are_hard 1y agoThe thing is... All those people were right. We no longer need the kinds of people we used to call programmers. There exists a new job, only semi related, that now goes by the name programmer. I don't know how many of the original programming professionals managed to make the transition to this new progression.
- jimbokun 1y agoEvery time they have been closer to being right.