The Programmer Identity Crisis

When COBOL was born, some people said, "It's English! We won't need programmers anymore!"

When SQL was born, some people said, "It's English! We won't need programmers anymore!"

Now we have AI prompting, and some people are saying, "It's English! We won't need programmers anymore!"

Really?

The problem I have with this argument is that it actually is English this time.

COBOL and SQL aren't English, they're formal languages with keywords that look like English. LLMs work with informal language in a way that computers have never been able to before.

Say that to the prompt guys and their AGENT.md rules.

Formalism is way easier than whatever this guys are concocting. And true programmer bliss is live programming. Common programming is like writing a sheet music and having someone else play it. Live programming is you at the instrument tweaking each part.

Yes natural languages are by nature ambiguous. Sometimes it's better to write specification in code rather than in a natural language(Jetbrains MPS for example).

The thing is... All those people were right. We no longer need the kinds of people we used to call programmers. There exists a new job, only semi related, that now goes by the name programmer. I don't know how many of the original programming professionals managed to make the transition to this new progression.

On the other hand, the problem is exactly that it’s not a formal language.

This is true.

But in faithful adherence to some kind of uncertainty principle, LLM prompts are also not a programming language, no matter if you turn down the temperature to zero and use a specialized coding model.

They can just use programming languages as their output.

This is also a strength. Formal languages struggle to work with concepts that cannot be precisely defined, which are especially common in the physical world.

e.g. it is difficult to write a traditional program to wash dishes, because how do you formally define a dish? You can only show examples of dishes and not-dishes. This is where informal language and neural networks shine.

I can't agree more.

Every time they have been closer to being right.

I can't wait to bring a whole restaurant's dishwashing to a halt with an adversarial plate that has some droplets of paint on it the color of steak sauce.