February 28, 2026
Codepocalypse Now?
The Eternal Promise: A History of Attempts to Eliminate Programmers
Internet erupts: Will AI fire coders or just make more of them
TLDR: A new essay says promises to replace programmers keep returning, from COBOL to today’s AI code bots. Commenters clash: some say corporate-owned AI isn’t “democratic,” others claim this time it truly works—useful like an tireless assistant, but still needing human oversight and good design.
A fiery thread exploded under the article tracing decades of “we’ll replace programmers” hype—from 1959’s COBOL dream to today’s chatty code-writing bots. The community split fast. One camp yelled “this time it’s different”, cheering AI that writes code from plain English, calling past attempts mere clunky “language converters.” Another camp shot back that there’s nothing “democratic” about tools locked behind giant companies: open laptop, open source, open freedom.
The pragmatists brought receipts. One builder bragged that modern models can “sit in meetings,” take notes, and remember context—basically an AI intern who never sleeps—but admitted they still wobble on good design without strong guardrails. History buffs said the essay nails a pattern: every “no more devs” promise just creates… more dev jobs (COBOL never dies, it just gets a pension). Meanwhile, a sharp elbow from the sidelines: stop worshiping history, ground-breaking tech breaks the mold.
Nostalgia cameo: someone noted the missing ’90s buzzword “software reuse,” arguing that coding with AI is reuse on steroids. Memes flew about “Linux keyboard warriors vs cloud overlords,” and “AI replacing meetings” got a standing ovation. Verdict? The comments turned into a tug-of-war between revolution, regulation, and remember-when.
Key Points
- •The article identifies a long-running cycle of promises to simplify or eliminate programming, resurfacing with today’s AI and LLMs.
- •COBOL was created in 1959 by Grace Hopper and the CODASYL committee to make programming accessible to business users.
- •Despite COBOL’s readability and success, it did not eliminate programmers; it created a specialized profession of COBOL developers.
- •COBOL remains critical in sectors like banking, insurance, and government, with billions of lines still running and ongoing demand for experts.
- •The piece contextualizes current AI optimism with 1960s–70s predictions by Herbert Simon and Marvin Minsky, highlighting past overconfidence in AI.