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.