> So IMHO Forth is an elitary language, designed and written for the best, or gifted, not for the masses.

This kind of attitude is typical for people using niche languages that nobody else use.

Assuming that developers using mainstream languages are somehow less intelligent (while at the same time developing world class software that runs the world) is childish at best.

I am not a psychologist but my guess would be that people with that attitude has a desperate need to feel smarter or more special than everybody else.

I assume this is sarcasm?

Software automatically translating COBOL to (say) Java has been around for a long time.

So there is zero value add using AI for this. Quite the opposite given how error prone AI is.

If that's the case then why haven't more places moved off of COBOL?

The language itself is the least of the problems. There is a whole mash of IBM mainframe technologies that is much harder to replace.

Isn’t a better question: why would they migrate off COBOL? Their business is working. What’s the impetus to change? It’s not like they need to use COBOL for every new project.

Also running probably nearly 100% bug free.

I completely agree. If AI can't do 100% of a job then you can't remove the job.

And most jobs that can be automated already has been automated using traditional software.

If AI does 90% of the work, you can either do more work with your current staff, or fire a portion and have them do the same amount of work.

Remove the job.. but have one super skilled coordinator managing and teaching agents the last 10% (or doing the 10% of the job)

A lot of jobs that can be automated haven't been because it's not worth it is because the people with domain knowledge can't imagine automating it is other related problems.

I'm not sure if LLMs will change that or not

You can replace it with a much lower paid employee though.

A lower paid and less qualified employee won’t be able to spot when the AI screws up.

Having a higher-paid, qualified employee supervising multiple AIs as the human only needs to spot for mistakes - maybe.

You’re looking at the end result, I’m looking at implementation. Engineering management, not QA.

You definitely cannot. Code org, architecture, and system design are senior level roles and responsibilities.

AI is already aware of the best practices. It does not just blindly do what you ask of it in the simplest way.

Best practices are always situation dependent.

Claude code will prompt you and explain to you what practice fits a situation. It might not do it perfectly, but the foundations are there.

That's not growth. Growth is having the existing employee do more.

I'm not arguing about growth. I was addressing this statement which seems to presume that AI has no effect if the job can't be removed.

> If AI can't do 100% of a job then you can't remove the job.

Completely agree. Refinement types is a much more practical tool for software developers focusing on writing real world correct code.

Using LEAN or Coq requires you to basically convert your code to LEAN/Coq before you can start proving anything. And importing some complicated Hoare logic library. While proving things correct in Dafny (for example) feels much more like programming.

I am 99.9999% sure my programming job will look pretty much the same two years from now.

I use AI daily, and it definitely helps me being (say) 10% more productive. However there is zero way an AI can do my job. And it looks as if LLM's have hit the limit of what is possible with the current AI architectures. So unless there is a revolutionary new architecture happening the next two years (unlikely) I don't see much change.

Also, using customer code generators makes me way more productive than using AI's. I simply declare what I want at a high level and the code generator in seconds spits out C++/Typescript/SQL/XML/JSON/CMake/Tests/... to do it. About 90% to 95% of the code I need is generated doing this. Way more efficient than using an AI.

It looks as if the robots are remote controlled by humans.

Look carefully and you can see that each robot moves slightly differently and reacts differently when landing.

Also, the movement is way too human like compared with known state of the art.

if this interests you check out the Mojo language.

Duplicate of this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47011722

Also

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46928172

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47004754

Correction: the investors lose billions (and perhaps their customers and/or suppliers lose billions too).

The companies don't lose anything. The employees and executives are not losing anything.

Welcome to business.