On the power of a language

Here is a mental exercise for you: go to tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ and take a look at the programming language popularity index. Notice the winner, the contender. Be surprised to find Visual Basic sitting in the 7th place. Feel some nostalgia after discovering Delphi is still a thing. Skim through the rest of the table.

Close your eyes. Breathe. Imagine the software development landscape a couple of years from now. What do you see? What is the most popular programming language?

English. Everyone writing prompts, enjoying abstractions over abstractions, wrappers over wrappers. Everyone. Kids, truck drivers, stay-at-home dads etc.

Close your eyes, again. What's going to happen next? Do we need a language after all? A language to communicate our intentions to a computer.