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Paul Rumkin
Paul Rumkin

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People shouldn't code

The most important thing I've realized after 18 years of coding: people shouldn't code. Machines should code. People should use the result.

I extremely love coding. But I code to bring the moment when people start to enjoy the life instead of sitting behind computers.

Why do you code, what’s your big goal?

Latest comments (14)

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juanfrank77 profile image
Juan F Gonzalez

I code for several reasons. It's what I was thought on college, it's what I do for a living, it's what got me the role I have now (quite an achievement) and is what I'm doing while I'm getting better at the other skills I need to do something far greater with my life that won't require coding anymore.

In a way, I agree with you that people should do more with their lives instead of spending most of sitting behind a computer. Then again, I think there are some people who wouldn't like that. Doing something different will require a change in mindset and other stuff that would be too much hassle for them and the comfort zone looks more appealing.

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kspeakman profile image
Kasey Speakman • Edited

I disagree. Code written by a machine (for people) has to guess at what it is like to be human.

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rumkin profile image
Paul Rumkin

Probably after some historic point we'll start to loose last traits inherited from animals and became more rational creatures. And will copy behavior from computers.

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dvp007 profile image
dVp007

I code to have fun, help myself to automate some of my tasks.

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rumkin profile image
Paul Rumkin

I'm not telling that programming will disappear. Coding for fun will be a retro hobby for some small group of people. And automation will become a robots' routine.

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dvp007 profile image
dVp007

What I think is computer is my slave and it will do whatever i command it without any errors and almost for free :P and this slave works for 24 hours and never gets tired of doing repeated tasks so its good yeah? isn't it?

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evieskinner18 profile image
Evie

I'm gonna respectfully disagree with you there!

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rumkin profile image
Paul Rumkin

Why?

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evieskinner18 profile image
Evie

Purely because, while a machine could write code more quickly, it could in no way write code in a way that surpasses a human's creativity or originality.

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rumkin profile image
Paul Rumkin

Aren't you trying to say that creative and original human brain couldn't write an AI which will be same creative and original? 😁

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evieskinner18 profile image
Evie

Ha ha, yeah I see the potential paradox there in what I'm saying... But in all honesty yes! Nobody knows what the future holds do they so I can't say that it's impossible; however, at the moment I'm not convinced an AI with no flesh and blood like us would ever experience feelings/instinct/inspiration like us. 😏 Really interested as to why you think machines should write code instead, why's that?

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rumkin profile image
Paul Rumkin

Really interested as to why you think machines should write code instead, why's that?

Our brain is a computer which was tuned to make us who we are today. It's important: we are who we are because others died in evolution contest. There were others, many of them. But nature selected us. And it was selecting by some measures and we can say that people who were too aggressive or too passive have gone away. So if we can analyze and measure this parameters, then we are countable and human could be presented as a mathematical model and thus digitalized. To be who we are today, we have cultivated a lot of treats. And one of selected treat is desire to simplify and automate things. And the final goal of the automation is automation of the automation itself. And sooner or later we will reach this goal. And when we will reach it, programming will became something like a strange outdated hobby not a work.

AI which will write this programs shouldn't be creative it just should be certain and reliable enough to write safe programs and do what we expect.

I love programming, but I try to keep cold mind and be realistic.

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ianwijma profile image
Ian Wijma

So, auto-generated code? Or something like scratch?

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rumkin profile image
Paul Rumkin

AI. Without it people always be required.