Do We Even Need Programmers Any More?
from the um.--yes. dept
InternetNews is taking a look at the latest development tool releases from Sun and Microsoft that try to "dumb down" programming to the point that any old idiot can create applications and wonders if coders are still necessary. The obvious answer the article reaches (and, yeah, the article includes a quote from me on this point) is that of course we'll still need real programmers. People have been promising the "programmer-less programs" for ages, and they seem to forget that designing applications isn't like designing a webpage. There's a lot more to it than just the user interface, and it's a different mode of thought. That said, however, it does seem like there is a real opportunity to expand the space of more personalized "quick and dirty" programs to solve specific needs. If people can have tools to build themselves specific programs it can expand the space, not necessarily shrink it for traditional programmers.
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No Subject Given
I don't think we'll stop needing real programmers soon.
dumbing down programming languages is fine and dandy, and some non-programmers are quite smart enough and have the mindset to create some very good applications (lego-like) by slapping some code together...
But...
for each GOOD app, there's thousands of really REALLY bad ones...and I don't just mean bad as in they suck and don't work properly, I mean bad as in very bad in terms of security risks.
Basically the "dumbing down" of computer languages accomplishes one thing in my mind, it makes it easy to slap together something quickly RAD-like to make a proof of concept or a quick and dirty solution. Once that's done, if its critical, then you go back, polish it up and do it right...with a REAL programming language.
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WYSIWYG Apps
I've been using WYSIWYG tools such as Multimedia Fusion (clickteam.com) for years. They are VERY powerful in many cases but there is no substitute for the real thing. Don't entirely discount such tools right away though. I'd love to see some competition and innovation in this area.
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PC magazine article
related article "Self-Writing Software"
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Re: No Subject Given
Exactly. Just look at Microsoft Access. While anyone can create a database with it, there's still a huge market for SQL databases. Different tools for different jobs, that's all.
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