is january Announcements of the ACM includes an essay predicting “the end of programming” in an AI-powered future where “programming will be obsolete.”
But IT analyst and ZDNet writer Joe McKendrick remains skeptical, judging by a new essay smugly titled “It’s the end of programming as we know it—again.”
Over the past several decades, various movements, paradigms, or leaps in technology – whatever you want to call them – have churned up the software world, promising to either hand off much of the programming work to end users or to automate the process more. CASE tools, 4GL, object-oriented programming, service-oriented architecture, microservices, cloud services, platform as a service, serverless computing, low-code, and no-code have all theoretically taken the onerous burdens out of software development. And potentially jeopardize the job security of developers.
But here we are. Software developers are busier than ever, and the demand for skills is increasing.
“I remember when the cloud first became popular and companies migrated to Office 365, everyone was saying that IT professionals will soon be out of jobs,” says Vlad Catrinescu, author at Pluralsight. “You know what – we’re still here and busier than ever.”
The question is how the job of developers will ultimately develop. There is a possibility that artificial intelligence applied to application development and maintenance, low-level coding will finally be a thing of the past and developers to work on more demanding applications. IT departments can focus on enterprise applications and building complicated apps and automations that will bring great value to the business.”
Even the man who predicts “the end of programming” in an AI-powered future also envisions a new technology that “potentially opens up computing to almost everyone” (in ACM’s video interview). But in a ZDNet article, Jared Ficklin, chief creative technologist and co-founder of argodesign, even predicts the possibility of real-time computing.
“You could imagine asking Alexa to create you an app to help you organize your kitchen. The AI would recognize the features, pick the right patterns, and wirelessly send an application to your cell phone, or maybe your wearable mobile computer, in real-time. “
