When Code Becomes a Commodity #codeyear

Right now there is a serious shortage of coders. Especially the good ones. They are in high demand. NY City Mayor Bloomberg is getting behind #codeyear, an effort to increase code literacy. Seems smart on the surface and it may pay off in the short term but it ignores what code really is- code is about making it easier to do and build things. So it's really just a matter of time before code becomes so good that almost no-one ever needs to use it.

I believe in the near future, 5-10 years at most, anyone who can talk will be able to build websites and applications without knowing code.
At that point code will be a commodity and design will become even more front and center in terms of value added. We are crossing over into an age of design since the tech age gave us such great design tools. Just as autoworkers who saw themselves replaced by robots, we will soon see the same maturation in the coding community. It might get ugly. It will definitely be interesting since it will turn anyone with access into a potential application creator.

Consider how far code, particularly on the web, has gone in the last 10 years and then consider Moore's Law.
The faster we build machines that then enable us to build better machines the sooner we arrive at intelligent machines that can code for us. So once the coders build this machine, which I think is inevitable, then they will have essentially coded themselves out of a job. New platforms like Ruby On Rails are early steps in this direction.

So how does a coder stay relevant? Become a designer who knows how to talk to machines. English will be the only language needed before long.