programming is dead and that’s what we wanted

I should have known programming was dead. It’s been dead since inception.

Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash

Not because of Claude Code, or even LLMs themselves. But this was always the end goal. Something that lets people describe what they want in plain language, and have the computer get close to what they imagined

This is where programming was always going. The entire history of programming has been a (slow) march towards talking to the computer in our language. Machine code became assembly became C became Java, Python, Javascript, whatever. Every generation of tooling made it a bit easier and more human readable to write code.

Then that wasn’t enough for us. We built frameworks, package managers, cloud platforms, no-code tools, Stack Overflow (RIP).

Photo by James Harrison on Unsplash

When you zoom out and have the gift of hindsight, it feels obvious. Programming kept getting closer and closer to english.

Which to me is funny. We have been brought right back to where we started, a lot like Ace Rothstein in Casino.

Programming has always been attempting to describe what exactly it is you want, in a format that the computer can (or eventually, after compiling) understand. The entire thing was always about translation. Translating the picture in your head into instructions for the computer.

And programming has always been vulnerable to tools like LLMs because it is text. It is extremely structured. It has patterns, conventions, syntax rules. Not to mention it has a wealth of publicly accessible examples.

Code is now an artifact. And yes I still have to finish my CS degree.