3 Predictions, How Software Development Will (Or Won't) Change By 2025
AI, crypto, web3, remote work, education
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intellige has already and will continue to assist programmers. Many of the more repetitive parts of coding will continue to be written by AI.
Some cool tools/examples of AI coding:
- GPT-3 coding up watermelon buttons
- Github Copilot suggesting and writing code at scale.
Although these tools are incredibly useful, AI will not entirely replace the developer. Naval Ravikant beautifully explains why AI is still far from completely replacing developers.
He mentioned that those "...talking about AI automated programming have never written serious code. Coding is thinking, its automated structured thinking. An AI that can code as well or better than humans is an AI that just took over the world. That's end game. That's the end of the human species."
He goes on to explain that our current best systems excel at deterministic, finite problems. Fundamentally, structured thinking (coding) is different in that programming is the act of solving indeterministic, infinite, open problems.
Finite, Discrete:
"Is this object a cat?"
Infinite, Indiscrete:
"What kind of user experience leaves users feeling excited to come back to my app?"
Prediction: AI will continue to augment programmers, but won't replace them.
Remote Work
The COVID-19 Pandemic is a driving force for remote work. Zoom alone saw a 2900% increase in meeting participants during the pandemic. Two years later, the pandemic is still going strong. (A new Covid strain was just discovered in South Africa.)
Remote work definitely wasnt the norm pre-Covid. But the script has been flipped. Remote work comes naturally for software developers who can perform their jobs just as well with a good laptop and an internet connection. Since software developers are technical, getting used to using tools like Slack and Zoom is a non-issue.
Remote work isn't without its challenges. Many companies are still working to solve issues:
- Building Team/Company Culture
- Developing bonds within the team/company
- Ensuring productivity and engagement
Regardless of issues with remote work, over 75% of software developers have said that they want to work remotely. Companies will need to offer this option if they want to stay competitive.
Some companies will push remote work further and adopt the Gumroad model of a full asynchronous workforce, where there are no meetings, no deadlines, and no full-time employees.
Prediction: Software Developers will continue to seek remote work.
Learning to Code
University tuition has increased by 211% in that last 20 years. Over the same time period, the median household income increased about 10% ($61,190 to $67,521.)
The cost of tuition has drastically increased in comparison to earnings, but so have the availability of resources for learning how to code. Many organizations centered on providing high quality, advanced CS curricula can be found online:
Several top tier Universities like MIT have already open sourced large portions of their course offerings, complete with lectures, homework and test questions.
With University becoming less accessible and online learning becoming more accessible, there will eventually be a shift where a 4 year CS degree is no longer the norm.
Prediction: 4 year degrees will become the exception for Software Developers. Eventually developers will be hired in spite of their 4 year degree.
Bonus: Web3/Crypto
Web3 has taken the world by storm lately. Bitcoin reached an all time high of $68, 521 this month. A group of people got together and raised over $40mm in an effort to buy a copy of the United States Constitution.
Although hype for Web3 seems to be at an all time high, there are certainly still major issues that need to be resolved:
Despite these issues, incredibly smart individuals like Chris Dixson, Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan have talked at length about how web3 will transform our world.
A majority of the software that is currently worked on today will likely develop and remain off chain. There seem to be many areas that would be improved by on-chain software engineering such as governance, ownership, credentialing.
Prediction: Web3 will largely remain on the fringe. Most developers will never work on Web3 as part of their day job.