“Coding” is an ambiguous term for many tasks and responsibilities. There is no agreed upon boundary at which point it will be “solved”. Consider these three cliches making the rounds now:
- Coding is largely solved? (ambiguous point of contention)
- Verification is not solved. (consensus)
- Maintainability is not solved. (consensus)
I have practical needs and I don’t see them getting met by arguing the semantics of point 1 while we’re suffering from 2 and 3. On a level playing field we might be able to negotiate “coding is solved” into a meaningful conversation, but the funding doesn’t want that, it wants a Superintelligence.
I agree. I recently chatted with an ex-dev manager who tasked two of his devs with coding a new feature entirely through AI. They succeeded, but lamented that they had pages and pages of prompt to get it right. “You guys have rediscovered the concept of a ‘design doc’,” he told them.