GitHub CEO: manual coding remains key despite AI boom

“Manual” has a negative connotation. If I understand the article correctly, they mean “human coding remains key”. It’s not clear to me the GitHub CEO actually used the word “manual”, that would surprise me. Is there another source on this that’s either more neutral or better at choosing accurate words? The last thing we need is to put down human coding as “manual”; human coders have a large toolbox of non-AI tools to automate their coding.

(Wow I sound triggered! sigh)

It's almost as bad as "manual" thinking!

>Manual” has a negative connotation. If I understand the article correctly, they mean “human coding remains key”.

A man is a human.

What is the distinction between manual coding and human coding?

Humanual coding? ;)

“Manual” comes from Latin manus, meaning “hand”: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/manus. It literally means “by hand”.

> Wow I sound triggered! sigh

this is okay! it's a sign of your humanity :)

How about “organic coding”? ;)

Acoustic coding

Analog coding

"Authentic" maybe ?

> “Manual” has a negative connotation

Wait does it? This is a new idea to me, in what way could "manual" have a negative connotation?

Are people really that against doing things manually nowadays?

Often when you're calling something "manual" you're taking something off the automated happy path to tediously and slowly wind the thing through its complex process by hand. The difference between manual coding and human coding is tedium and laboriousness. It's not laborious to program, but the phrase "manual coding" evokes that image.

Maybe that’s what they’ve been doing? No one using Vim, Emacs, or Unix as an IDE would say they do manual coding with the amount of automation that usually goes there.

Indeed, if your not using butterflies to program, it's not manual, and your not a real programmer

https://xkcd.com/378/

Nice one :)

I too can sling a bit of Latin. ;)

Here is one phrase, in which one word, malus, is like an off-by-one error from your manus word, so to speak :) :

nemo malus nisi probetur

https://www.google.com/search?q=nemo+malus+nisi+probetur

From the AI overview (need to at least try that out a few times after all the talk about Google enshittification like by Cory Doctorow in this year's PyCon US keynote:

>Nemo malus nisi probetur" is a Latin legal maxim that translates to "No one is evil unless proven." It signifies that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This principle is fundamental to legal systems that value fairness and due process, ensuring that accusations are substantiated before a person is considered culpable. Here's a breakdown of the phrase:

    Nemo: No one
    malus: Evil, bad, wicked
    nisi: Unless
    probetur: Is proven, is shown, is demonstrated 

The maxim essentially means that one should not be treated as inherently bad or guilty without sufficient evidence. This principle is closely related to the concept of "presumption of innocence" and is crucial for upholding justice and protecting individual rights.