Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Recent advances in chatting or Q&A software has provided the ability to write simple computer programs. Hooray!

There is a trend in the workplace called “low-code/no-code.” A person at work writes a ten-line computer program that is helpful in that it will do something in a minute that would take the person several hours to do. The person has automated a task that is simply tedious and error prone.

What is new about this low-code/new-code is that a person doesn’t need a computer science degree or such to learn how to write a little program that automates a tedious task. Other programmers have done all the work and created libraries of software. Write one statement that calls a jillion lines of code and there you have it. Useful stuff.

This low-code/no-code works. The only surprise is that few people are doing it.

I call this “hobby” programming. I used to write real computer programs that were complicated and took thousands of lines of code. That was years ago. My career took me down the path of supervising people who wrote real computer programs. I wrote books about how to do that—lead the programmers and manage the work of engineering.

No longer. I still write computer programs, but they are ten lines long and automate tedious, error-prone tasks. Just hobby programming.

And now we have these AI chatting software things like chat.openai.com, bard.google.com, phind.com, etc. Describe the little low-code/no-code, hobby program and the software “writes” the program for me. Hmmm, this is pretty good. And yes, it actually works.

But, but, but… sorry. It actually works. And what is nice is that I can test the software that the software writes.

But, but, but… sorry. This won’t replace real programmers who write real, complex programs. And there is some skill required to use this software that writes hobby programs. The better I specify what I want, the better the result. Hmmm, I have to talk to the software in precise, concrete, and specific terms. That English composition class I took my first semester of college pays off again.

We have a new productivity tool. Decades of work bear fruition. We stand on the shoulders of those who worked before us. Let’s not waste our time standing on one another’s toes.