The hardest part of building software is not coding, it’s requirements
The hardest part of building software is not coding, it’s requirements
Why replacing programmers with AI won’t be so easy.
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But coding seems quite literally like modeling those requirements.
Yes. But you have to know the requirements before you can pour them in code. You don't start coding and are granted a vision by the god of logic about where your journey will lead you.
you don’t start coding and are granted a vision by the god of logic about where your journey will lead you.
What is Agile for $200?
From the article:
There are times when I’m writing software just for myself where I don’t realize some of the difficulties and challenges until I actually start writing code.
I get what you're saying but regardless if you have them upfront or along the way coding is modeling those requirements as we best imagine or understand them....even accidentally when following practices learned from others we may not even realize what requirements our modeling has solved.
Sure, sometimes you find requirements that you didn't think of beforehand.
But what is programming at the core? I'd summarize it like this: "Explaining how to solve a complex problem to a very fast idiot." And the thing C-Suits like to forget is that this explanation is given in a specialised language that, at least ideally, leaves no room for interpretation. Because ultimately the computer doesn't understand Python, Rust, C or even assembly. It understand opcodes given in binary. Assembly may be the closest human-readable approximation, but it still has to be translated for the computer to understand it.
So what happens when you "replace" programmers with neural networks? You replace a well-defined, precise language to use for your explanation (because you still have to explain to the fast idiot what you want it to do) with English or whatever natural language you train your network on. A language littered with ambiguities and vague syntax.
Were it a tool to drive nails into wood you would've replaced a nail gun with a particularly lumpy rock.I don't see neural networks effectively replacing programmers any time soon.