[djwide]

I wrote a short essay arguing that the history of software development is fundamentally the history of moving up successive layers of abstraction.

Machine code gave way to assembly. Assembly gave way to compiled languages. Then operating systems, libraries, frameworks, and eventually Python. Each layer hid more implementation details and allowed programmers to express higher-level intent.

My argument is that LLM coding agents are simply the next step in that progression. We're no longer writing a programming language that resembles English—we're increasingly using English itself as the programming language.

The essay also discusses why higher abstraction historically increases human agency, why this makes AI a "normal technology" rather than a fundamentally unprecedented one, and what the next level of abstraction beyond natural language might look like.

I'd be interested in hearing where people think this analogy breaks down.

Linked youtube. Substack - https://www.letters.senteguard.com/p/the-next-rung-on-the-la...