Anyone old enough to remember when UML promised the same thing? Never have to touch code again -- just draw boxes, charts, activity diagrams, etc. and right-click and generate code! Rational Rose is the future of programming!

It always turns out that when you have to make a computer execute a very precise set of operations, the absolute best way to communicate this is not English, not diagrams, but code.

It also turns out that the challenge is generally not writing that code, but figuring out that precise set of operations in the first place.

▲ pjmlp 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, and in the enterprise space, many workflows are nowadays done with lowcode/no-code tooling, like PowerApps, Adobe Workfront Fusion, Outsystems, among others.

Many of these tools, have started to go one step further, and the traditional ways are supplanted with AI, reducing even further the amount of low code/no code scenarios that a human has to produce.

The only thing left are the few serverless deployments to call into some code that needs more complex integration logic, and that is about it.

I have seen enough of these projects, to realize it is going to happen, not everywhere maybe, but in specific industry sectors certainly, it already is.

▲ godelski 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's almost as if we write code because it is a very precise language... a feature that natural languages don't have.

I'm just going to leave this here...

  On the foolishness of "natural language programming".
  - Dijkstra
  https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD667.html

▲ simianwords 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You still communicate in code and fix the errors.

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mjr00 6 days ago | parent [-]

> You still communicate in code and fix the errors.

But you just said

> Coding as a skill won't be that important.

So coding is only important if you need to make your software actually work, I guess?

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simianwords 6 days ago | parent [-]

I just said its not that important. Your time won't be spent coding but rather fixing stuff here and there.

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mjr00 6 days ago | parent [-]

... so how are you supposed to fix things without coding, given that you admitted you need to dive into the code to fix things?

	▲	simianwords 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Its not a binary - we will spend less time thinking about code and occasionally fix things and more time on higher level abstractions. Just like I sometimes need to understand and dive into assembly but not always. Its a spectrum and the value in the spectrum changing has consequences for how we work.