The Future of Software Development is Software Developers
This blog post discusses the cyclical nature of technological advancements in software development, emphasizing that despite predictions of the end of programmers, the demand for skilled software developers remains high. The author argues that the complexity of translating human thinking into precise computational logic, along with the limitations of current AI technologies, ensures that software developers will continue to be essential. The post also cautions against the hype surrounding large language models, suggesting that their current limitations and high costs may lead to a reevaluation of their role in software development.
The hard part of computer programming isn’t expressing what we want the machine to do in code. The hard part is turning human thinking – with all its wooliness and ambiguity and contradictions – into computational thinking that is logically precise and unambiguous, and that can then be expressed formally in the syntax of a programming language.
That was the hard part when programmers were punching holes in cards. It was the hard part when they were typing COBOL code. It was the hard part when they were bringing Visual Basic GUIs to life (presumably to track the killer’s IP address). And it’s the hard part when they’re prompting language models to predict plausible-looking Python.
The hard part has always been – and likely will continue to be for many years to come – knowing exactly what to ask for.
Wanted to share this excerpt mainly, but the whole piece is good.
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