“Language of the Future?”

I was reading through some of my old issues of “Compute!’s Gazette” magazine and came across an article in the October 1985 issue titled, “C: Language Of The Future?” by Charles Brannon. At the time of the writing, C was still a new language as far as home computers were concerned, though it had been used in main-frame computers for a few years at this time. I immediately fell in love with his opening sentence in the article. “Unless you learn to program, your use of a computer will always be limited to entering or extracting information from ‘canned’ applications software.” This phrasing got me thinking, what is the future of computer programming languages today? And is it still important to learn programming?

I can say that I find it kind of scary what we can do with computers today compared to the capabilities in the 1980s. I know you probably think I am going to say that it is scary how much more advanced we have become, but honestly I feel quite the opposite. In the 1980s almost everyone who owned a computer learned to program in BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). The more advanced computer users also learned to program in the lower level machine language which works at the direct processor command set level. Today only a few people actually bother to learn programming, and only then, just enough to do exactly what they want.

I teach a computer science class to a group of high-school students and learned that most of them know some Java for doing Minecraft modifications and some Python for doing limited changes on Roblox, but when it comes to really understanding programming, there is no real BASIC understanding. You see the problem is that as our computers have become seemingly smarter, they have also become more complex. A perfect example is a simple program that prints the words, “Hello, World!” to the screen used to be a single line in BASIC, and now takes five lines in C++ as well as most mainstream languages. Python is the exception to the rule and seems to be nearly as easy to learn as the old BASIC.

I also find that there is a real interest in understanding how software works, and how it can be customized to do exactly what one wants, but the access to materials that teach you how to do it has become much more complex. Computers in the 1980s came with a programming guide and sample code included in the printed User’s Manual. There were several computer magazines printed that taught programming languages, as well as providing all kinds of free software in the form of code printed in the magazines. If you owned a computer in the 1980s, you most likely copied at least one program out of a magazine. Strangely one of the most popular early word processors was published in “Compute!’s Gazette” before a commercial word processor was ever released.

I am honestly worried a lot about our children and their access to and use of computers. As we have increased the amount of screen time in education, they have gained access to more information than any prior generation, yet are scoring lower on standardized tests than any generation before them. I think it is because the information has become so easy to access they see no reason to commit anything to memory. We took what should have been an amazing tool and turned it into something we have become totally dependent upon. So what is the language of the future? If Artificial Intelligence continues at the current pace, there will not be a human readable computer language in the future. We will tell an AI agent what we want the computer to do and it will write the software directly in machine code. We will learn to trust it more than we trust ourselves, and it makes me ask, who will then be in control?

Charles Brannon wrote in his article, “By programming, you gain full control over your machine. The simplest computer is a far more powerful tool in the hands of the programmer.” I can’t help but think that if we are to remain in control over our computers, we must continue to be in control of the programming. Surrendering that task to AI is giving up full control and handing it back to the computer and those who designed the AI software. I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan on giving control to the computer or big technology companies that control the AI and software ecosystems. I will continue to learn and create my own software, and I hope we have more people in the next generation willing to do the same. Until next week, stay safe and learn something new.

Scott Hamilton is an Expert in Emerging Technologies at ATOS and can be reached with questions and comments via email to shamilton@techshepherd.org or through his website at https://www.techshepherd.org.