Let’s take a moment to recognize the value, power, necessity, and inevitability of everyone on your team with the power to code. Not coding in the traditional sense using terminal, GitHub, Javascript, SQL, and 1,493 other languages and tools but with a new way, a more human way, what we call programming by storytelling. This is the story behind Story.ai, the one tool that will turn everyone into a developer. I do hope at the end of this tale you will be inspired to become a developer yourself because you can, in less time it takes to read this story (10 minutes). Take the red pill.
“99% of people who use computers do not know programming and they get stuck with repetitive, tedious tasks.” —Sumit Gulwani of Microsoft Research Group.
It’s almost 2022 and we have hundreds of “low-code” and “no-code” products on the shelves today. Even “AI” can code for us (though only useful to developers). This movement is not new, it started decades ago, only recently getting trendy with Twitter hashtags. They came, they saw, and they did not conquer. But don’t you worry, soon everyone can create more internet stuff and command the computer like a 1990’s basement-dwelling nerd on their way to dot-com millionairehood. Only those living under a rock would be caught off-guard with what I’m about to say…
Soon, everyone on your team will be programming. Resumes will state “I write stories” (indicating you can program, keep up). The human race will evolve from homo-sapiens to homo-developers, one more step on the path to homo-deus. I do not believe it to be a matter of hope, it is simply a matter of time.
Wait, wait! Don’t worry my fellow software engineers, you won’t lose your precious jobs. Like in physics, there is the small and the big; the quantum and the cosmos, the low-level and the high-level. Programming has many layers of abstractions — the cake needs the filling. You will be needed for many decades to come (I do hope forever). What will change is who identifies as a developer (he/she/they/developer). The few become the many.
What about “AI” replacing developers? Computers won’t be replacing our well-groomed code monkeys anytime soon. OpenAI’s Codex is cool — but it’s only the tip of the iceberg, a grain of sand compared to what developers do in the real world. Find me one competent developer that thinks OpenAI will replace them and I’ll eat my socks. Now that the “oh shit, I’m gonna lose my job” moment is out of the way let’s flip the script from fear to Yahoo! for your fellow homo-sapiens journey to homo-developer, after all, you may identify as a developer thanks to the groundwork laid by the mothers and fathers of modern-day computers. For example, Margaret Hamilton wrote code that landed humans on the freaking Moon in 1969 with a computer less powerful than the one in your pocket. We traveled…but how far have we really come?
My mom calls me a “computer wizard” because I can slap some HTML and CSS together on the World-Wide-Web. To her, it’s magic. To me, it’s breakfast. Now, moms can use Webflow or Notion or Wix or hundreds of other tools to get something out into the Wild-Wild-West (scary, but progress). These nifty tools extended the bubble of “people who can program” and now power your “Uber for cat grooming” business (really mom?) with “no-code”. It’s basic math: everyone uses tech so everyone should be able to program tech and the world will be a better place (please use software for good).
Why would we want everyone to program? Is this necessary and valuable? Software engineering is among the highest paying jobs, every company is a tech company, and a trillion dollars is spent in the name of programming computers. Just follow the money and you’ll clearly see the value and necessity. Or, you can ask a non-developer if having “I can program computers” on the resume would be a benefit.
But how? How will learning to program improve my productivity and what can I do with this wizardly skill? Three letters: API. If the hundreds of computer languages are the language of computers; then API would be its Star Trek-like universal translator: the language that communicates between programs. If your head is spinning, don’t worry, it’s as confusing as it is ugly, confusing, and highly technical; so 99% of us are unable to talk, properly, with and between our software. The programming required for tasks of a domain-expert (like you) is accomplished with APIs and sprinkles of data wrangling, transformation, and extraction (also APIs in the end). When I say everyone will code, I mean everyone will fluently communicate with APIs to automate tasks, move data cross-application more efficiently than manual copy-paste, and generate long-living programs that augment their everyday activities on the computer. So next time you ask your developer “hey can you pull this data, join it, let me pick some entries, make a dashboard, and send a summary to me monthly” just don’t ask the developer; ask the computer and have fun building it (like Legos) yourself or better, have the developer join you in a real-time collaborative environment, building it together.
Staff at Microsoft estimate only 1% of humans are reasonably capable of programming a computer. Seriously? We can do better, we must aim higher, to the “Tea, Earl Grey, hot”-level. There are many questions to answer, many issues to solve, many skeptics to turn believers, so let’s start with the facts since we are all smoking-the-“science”-pipe these days. Puff, puff, and pass this idea through that magnificent 8-pound fleshy bio-computer your born with (RIP John C. Lilly):
1. Real-Time Collaboration
It’s all the rage these days. Collaboration improves remote work, productivity, knowledge sharing, and simply getting work done faster; real-time collaboration is a requirement for any “next-gen” tool, and, for good reason, as it brings people together. My favorite example is Figma. Figma won due to the incredible effect of turning everyone into a designer — developers are next.
2. Human Language
Our species has spent a hundred thousand years refining our first, and most cherished technology: language. Language is used to express intent (like “remove the background of this image” or “file my taxes”), the computer synthesizes programs in human language (using science) for you to choose from that fits your needs; like picking a flavor of ice cream. This is what we call programming by storytelling (catchy, right?). If we are to be true masters of our machines, we must insist that both parties of this dialogue communicate in the same language: human language, not “Java” the language of hipster baristas or “Fortran” the language of professional Fortnite athletes.
3. Notebook
Not the movie, what a masterpiece though… you know that classic word document that every single computer user fluently understands? Yea, that one. Thank you Microsoft Word and Google Docs for that sweet digital paper. The document is prolific, simple, intuitive, natural, and collaborative. It works with every human language, it reads like a book, you can even print it out and fax it to your grandma (who will comprehend your program too). You can embed rich media like images of unicorns, forms for data entry, tutorial videos, add buttons that do magical things, and drop emojis everywhere to show your personality. Also, documents have this way of fitting on every digital screen: computer, phone, watch, even your Tesla’s dashboard. The perfect form factor for such a bold idea.
1+2+3 = Story.ai, a real-time collaborative notebook where everyone writes programs together in natural human language.
The result of your programming by storytelling is a business Playbook that contains documentation, process, and personality all-in-one place. Within a Playbook, you’ll share Vocabulary that captures the meaning behind terms in your company (like VIP customers, high-priority support tickets, and KPIs) ready to use in a Story, what you might traditionally call a program. In the end, the result of this collaborative document is everyone becoming a developer and everyone on the same page. Isn’t that lovely! Programming by storytelling — it’s not brain surgery; simply express your intent in the document or ask a question of your data — it’s kinda like that famous text box on www.google.com but instead of searching the internet it’s getting shit-done.
In the end, all humans are storytellers. So…what’s your story?
