The first definition of a programmer’s job had no typing in it. Seventy years of typing later, it is due for a rewrite.
TL;DR: In 1954, Grace Hopper defined a programmer as someone who prepares a plan, and left the code to a separate job: the coder. Compilers merged the two jobs for seventy years; prompting is splitting them again, and the precision that writing code demanded is moving to the plan and the proof. AI’s inconsistency is fixable: identical answers are a design choice, bought with speed. Whoever owns the judgment and the checks (tests, acceptance criteria, reviews) is programming, in any language. My draft definition: a programmer decides, directs people and agents, and answers for the evidence. Rewrite one role around the outcome it verifies, then find the checks nobody owns.
