Coding is Dead. Long Live the Coders | Hacker News Reader

Coding is Dead. Long Live the Coders

blog.openviewpartners.com

21 pointsvj4418 comments

Seems a little naive. I don't think our OSs, device drivers, X engines for X in [webbrowser, GUI, 3d engine, etc] will be just... done by front enders...

Chicken and egg: will "real coders" will make the last tool and die out to be replaced by front enders forever more? Who will maintain the tools and make them better.

This is silly

Better tools don't replace coders with front enders, they simply allow a greater percent of the general population in the form of front enders to participate at all in creation.

(also: comparing some excel plugin allowing python to the matrix brain downloader seems.... unjustified)

Amen.

I have experienced the joy of front end development and seen the damage it causes. Massive duplication, ripe with bugs, stuff gets thrown away constantly and reinvented a week later, no ability for reuse. It's a great way to throw away money. "A little naive" is an understatement.

But don't you get it? Eventually we will have operating systems which write themselves and self-hosted front-end code generators!

True. Coding and coders are ever-lasting.

This is one of the thinner pieces I've come across on the HN front page (as was the linked article). I'm not usually one to over-emphasize qualifications, but the author is making fairly bold assertions about an industry he is at best tangentially involved with.

"Professional Interest

Nick analyzes portfolio companies and their target markets to help them focus on opportunities for profitable growth.

Experience

Prior to joining OpenView in 2011, Nick worked at Echo Bridge Capital, a startup hedge fund in Boston. In his two years there, he analyzed prospective and current investment opportunities in the Consumer Discretionary sector, and helped write the quarterly investment letter."

This is one of the most nonsensical articles I've ever come across on the HN front page.

Synopsis:

1. Coding is dead (title)

2. Front-end development is being democratized by higher level paradigms, thereby obsoleting "coders" (defined loosely as those who code at the lower levels of abstraction)

3. BUT WAIT! Because programming has been made available to those who don't have the most fundamental level of understanding of the craft, this in turn liberates the low level guys to focus on stuff like optimizations, scalability, or robustness.

Er, wait, how is coding Dead again?

I'm assuming that these guys are investors in DataNitro, considering that both the VC firm and the startup are located in Boston, and since the submitter works at DataNitro.

I like DataNitro's product, I like the guys (whom I've talked to) at DataNitro personally, but this article is quite senseless.

We're not affiliated with the VC. I thought the article is an interesting viewpoint from someone who isn't technical. It shows that there are tools enabling him to do what he would have previously needed a programmer to help him with.

We want to make DataNitro compelling not just for Python experts, but also for Excel power users that have some basic programming knowledge (from using formulas, if statements, vlookups, etc.). The article shows that we're succeeding on this at least a little.

>It shows that there are tools enabling him to do what he would have previously needed a programmer to help him with.

That does not make sense. It only enabled him to not have to learn a new language. It still required a programmer.

Yikes, I did not expect such strong opinions when I wrote this. Of course building an OS will always require coding, my point was that more usable front ends are replacing low-level coding projects. In the case of Zapier, instead of cobbling together APIs or hiring someone to do the same, I can use a drag and drop interface. Someone has to code for that to happen, but it isn't me anymore.

"Coding is dead" is obviously hyperbole. It would have been more accurate to call the article "Front end platforms are gradually replacing some light projects that previously would have required coding" but that didn't fit, so I went with the current title instead.

Like karamazov said, I'm not affiliated with DataNitro (except as a user), IFTTT, Zapier, or FRAPI, so please don't confuse my opinions with any of theirs. We are affiliated with Monetate, as I stated in the article, but I have no idea what they think of the article (and they probably disagree as much as everyone else seems to).

Thanks for taking the time to clarify your (non) affiliation with DataNitro. I apologize for my misunderstanding and appreciate you coming in to correct my errors.

LOL this article starts out talking about writing excel macros.

Who does he think creates excel... or the os it runs on. It seems like the author is meaning script monkeys or something. The guys who take real applications' outputs and does whatever those guys do with them... not actual developers.

As soon as everyone learns to write there will be no need for writers.

On the one hand, assembly developers are just assembler end users. If you don't directly manipulate the silicon, you're only a plumber.

On the other hand, ifttt and excel are both programs for crunching information, same as a compiler. They're not as powerful or expressive, but that's no more of a constraint than a limited kitchen is to an enterprising chef. Just because you don't use the same tools they had in the past doesn't make you a poser.

Programmers make machines out of logic. You can tackle hard problems or easy problems at any level of abstraction. Whether you're good or bad doesn't depend on what tools you use, but what you create.

Plumbers can't build taps that allow users to create new plumbing. Developers are different in this regard.

Otherwise, I agree.

I agree with you for the most part, but if you give a chef a kitchen with no knives, that's going to put some severe limits on what he can cook. Of course it's possible to create some excellent dishes without a knife, but there are some dishes that are just plain uncookable.

And it does matter very much what tools you use -- one of the defining features of a masterful craftsman is that he knows exactly which tools to use for a particular job. Sure you can flip those fried eggs with a spoon, but it will be easier to use a spatula, and they'll come out better to boot.

That is the most obnoxious site I have ever been to. I closed the window after having to close two Popups to continue reading.

"As far as we know, stupid smoke internet spam journalism is dead, as social media driven machine learning algorithms would probably make up better articles than BA in Economics and Politics"

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