At some point, somebody will succeed in some real fashion with a tool that allows non-programmers to make software (for real, not baby software). And after that I'll just go live in the woods, I guess. The cost of my labor will go from a lot to basically zero.
Still, even though their goal (and the goal of similar projects) is my obsolescence, I wish them luck. It will probably be a massive overall good. But it's also a reason why I think all the current frenetic activity about teaching more people to program will end up being the wrong thing.
> somebody will succeed in some real fashion with a tool that allows non-programmers to make software (for real, not baby software)
I'll bet this won't happen. If you can get non-programmers to produce what we think of as real software now, I am sure whatever insight you made will make programmers create much better, more complicated software.
Everyone can write but there are still professional writers. There is a difference between being good enough to get at work and good enough that thousands of people read and enjoy your work.
Similarly, basic computational literacy should include being able to knock together a simple CRUD app or running a simulation. That doesn't mean that Joe Plumber is going to be building complex distributed systems any time soon. It will certainly ease the interface between professional programmers and users though. Rather than having to provide complete appliances where every possible user action is accounted and coded for ahead of time, you can just supply tools that the user applies however they like.
The Unity marketplace looks a bit like this. It turns out there are lots of people who have the desire to make a game and enough skills to handle basic scripting but not enough to build their own physics engine. In the marketplace you can buy level editors, animation engines, pathfinding algorithms etc and glue them together.
Don't give up just yet. They might take away some of the work in the solution but the world will still need people who can think about the problem. Most people can't do that.
I am sure they will do much better than MS Access. But still, years ago I had to work on a couple of projects where the spec was some system in Access that the domain experts had coded up. What a mess! - Really, you have no idea. They eventually could not fix the bugs themselves which was why the new system was being written. So there will always be room for people who can organise and abstract things.
True, people can "do stuff" but one must really understand what's going on to analyze and fix problems. Maybe we'll all have jobs un-screwing the terrible messes people make with their visual tools :)
Still, even though their goal (and the goal of similar projects) is my obsolescence, I wish them luck. It will probably be a massive overall good. But it's also a reason why I think all the current frenetic activity about teaching more people to program will end up being the wrong thing.