[rstephenson2]

This sounds in line with Google creating go: restrict the language features so you can hire mass quantities of programmers and be reasonably sure they won’t go off the rails. It’s fine for what it’s for but doesn’t seem like that should be the goal of most programming projects?

Especially with AI copilots getting better, it feels like we’re headed for a point where you’re either capable of architecting complex systems, or there isn’t much software for you to write: other industries tend to have rote work for beginners while they gain skills, but in software rote work tends to get automated away. AI can help people learn faster, but given what AI has proven good at, I expect more of the gains will go to expert productivity. (or non-programmer domain experts)

[sokoloff]

I think AI copilots will allow more people to be productive in software and, by so doing, allow vastly more software to be created.

Related to that idea is that, with the right definition (unconventional but not tortured), I think that more software is created in Excel than in python today and a large swath of the people making spreadsheets today for their business will be using AI copilots to make better software 20 years from now.

[rstephenson2]

Totally agree. AI empowers people with existing software expertise, and empowers people with domain knowledge. Both of which have historically been bottlenecked by things AI is now getting good at.