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I think programming in 2020 (a mere 7 years hence) will look jaw-droppingly similar to what it looks like now. It doesn't even look all that different (to me)

I think programming in 2020 (a mere 7 years hence) will look jaw-droppingly similar to what it looks like now. It doesn't even look all that different (to me) from what it looked like in the 90's (20 years ago). 7 years ago (2006), what was different? What new techs have come out in that span? Ruby on Rails had already been out for 18 months, though it hadn't gained its current level of adoption. Github hadn't been launched until 2008 but the first Git had. These differences suggest that whatever new technologies will be becoming mainstream have already launched. I submit that if you traveled forward in time 7 years you would not only be able to pick up programming in the media of the time without any review but you'd be hard-pressed to find what had changed.

codegeek 14y ago
"7 years ago (2006), what was different? What new techs have come out in that span?" Even though I understand the overall point you are making, we had a few significant changes since 2006. The emergenc of iphone/ipad and the App Store/iOS programming.
- mchannon 14y ago
  Fair point. Still, what programming actually looks like for those environments (black monospaced text in large windows) is little changed. 2020 will see some new devices, but we won't be using our voices, LabVIEW-style icons, or a foreign character set to program these devices. I think in a number of ways it's reassuring that so little of programming skill itself is destined for obsolescence.
- msh 14y ago
  It's not that different (technically) from developing Mobil apps in 2006, then the target was just Symbian and windows mobile.