--- title: Programming Has Been Declared Dead Six Times Since 1843.... description: An essay argues that predictions of programming's demise have recurred since 1843, from Ada Lovelace's notes on the Analytical Engine through punched cards,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/programming-has-been-declared-dead-six-times-since-1843-each-time-the-job-moved-up-a-floor-and-hir-fxw4ifw1g twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Programming Has Been Declared Dead Six Times Since 1843. Each Time, the Job Moved Up a Floor and Hired More People. | daily.dev og:description: An essay argues that predictions of programming's demise have recurred since 1843, from Ada Lovelace's notes on the Analytical Engine through punched cards,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/programming-has-been-declared-dead-six-times-since-1843-each-time-the-job-moved-up-a-floor-and-hir-fxw4ifw1g og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/fXw4IFW1G.png og:image:alt: Programming Has Been Declared Dead Six Times Since 1843. Each Time, the Job Moved Up a Floor and Hired More People. og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Programming Has Been Declared Dead Six Times Since 1843. Each Time, the Job Moved Up a Floor and Hired More People. **[Noor Mohammad](https://daily.dev/sources/ew9hy5zthevyyefagop4g)** · [@noormohammad](https://daily.dev/noormohammad) · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary An essay argues that predictions of programming's demise have recurred since 1843, from Ada Lovelace's notes on the Analytical Engine through punched cards, terminals, high-level languages, and now AI-generated code. Each supposed abstraction layer that automated the one below it was met with panic that programmers would become obsolete, yet each shift instead expanded the field and hired more people. The 1950s reaction to compilers is presented as a close parallel to current anxiety about AI coding tools. ## Content The first program was written for a machine that didn't exist — Ada Lovelace, 1843, steps for an Analytical Engine that was only drawings. Her stranger note: such an engine needn't stop at arithmetic, since anything expressible in symbols might be composed by machinery. 183 years on: a developer joins GitHub every second, AI drafts code from plain sentences, and programming is declared over — right on schedule. The pattern, checkable rather than asserted: wiring rooms → punched cards → terminals → connected era → plain sentence. **Five floors, eighty years, each automating the one below, each declared the end, each hiring more than the last.** Includes the 1950s compiler panic, which predicts today's AI panic nearly line for line. 🔗 [https://medium.com/@thebuildersplaybook/programming-has-been-declared-dead-six-times-since-1843-7952fb0a6aae](https://medium.com/@thebuildersplaybook/programming-has-been-declared-dead-six-times-since-1843-7952fb0a6aae) ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@noormohammad** · 0 upvotes > The compiler parallel is the strongest part — the objections to FORTRAN ("real programmers won't trust generated machine code", "you lose the understanding of what's actually executing") are recognisably the same objections being made about AI-generated code now. > > Genuine question rather than a rhetorical one: is there a reason this cycle breaks the pattern? The strongest version I can construct is that previous abstractions were deterministic and this one isn't — curious whether people think that's a real discontinuity or just the current generation's version of the same discomfort. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why We've Tried to Replace Developers Every Decade Since 1969](https://daily.dev/posts/why-we-ve-tried-to-replace-developers-every-decade-since-1969-dsek6eepj) · Hacker News · 5 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/programming-has-been-declared-dead-six-times-since-1843-each-time-the-job-moved-up-a-floor-and-hir-fxw4ifw1g) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/programming-has-been-declared-dead-six-times-since-1843-each-time-the-job-moved-up-a-floor-and-hir-fxw4ifw1g","headline":"Programming Has Been Declared Dead Six Times Since 1843. Each Time, the Job Moved Up a Floor and Hired More People.","text":"An essay argues that predictions of programming's demise have recurred since 1843, from Ada Lovelace's notes on the Analytical Engine through punched cards, terminals, high-level languages, and now AI-generated code. Each supposed abstraction layer that automated the one below it was met with panic that programmers would become obsolete, yet each shift instead expanded the field and hired more people. The 1950s reaction to compilers is presented as a close parallel to current anxiety about AI coding tools.","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/programming-has-been-declared-dead-six-times-since-1843-each-time-the-job-moved-up-a-floor-and-hir-fxw4ifw1g","datePublished":"2026-09-02T04:35:59.527Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T21:03:16.963Z","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Noor Mohammad","url":"https://daily.dev/noormohammad","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--3w4n0n-6--/f_auto/v1754054115/avatars/avatar_eW9hy5zTHEVyYeFaGOP4G?_a=BAMClqZW0","description":"Software Engineer | React, Next.js & scalable web apps | Writing on AI, blockchain & emerging tech","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"EndorseAction"},"userInteractionCount":120}},"interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}],"comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"The compiler parallel is the strongest part — the objections to FORTRAN (“real programmers won’t trust generated machine code”, “you lose the understanding of what’s actually executing”) are recognisably the same objections being made about AI-generated code now.\nGenuine question rather than a rhetorical one: is there a reason this cycle breaks the pattern? The strongest version I can construct is that previous abstractions were deterministic and this one isn’t — curious whether people think that’s a real discontinuity or just the current generation’s version of the same discomfort.","datePublished":"2026-09-02T04:36:12.568Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/fXw4IFW1G#c-ePMauRYxE","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Noor Mohammad","url":"https://daily.dev/noormohammad","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--3w4n0n-6--/f_auto/v1754054115/avatars/avatar_eW9hy5zTHEVyYeFaGOP4G?_a=BAMClqZW0"}}],"isPartOf":{"@type":"WebPage","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/ew9hy5zthevyyefagop4g","name":"Noor Mohammad"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Noor Mohammad","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/ew9hy5zthevyyefagop4g"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Programming Has Been Declared Dead Six Times Since 1843. 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