computer science
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No-code is code
Today, the release of OpenAI Codex, a new Al system that translates natural language to code, marks the beginning of a shift in how computer software is written.
Over the past few years, there’s been growing talk about “no code” platforms, but this is no new phenomenon. The reality is, ever since the first programmable devices, computer scientists have regularly developed breakthroughs in how we “code” computer software.
The first computers were programmed with switches or punch cards, until the keyboard was invented. Coding became a matter of typing numbers or machine language, until Grace Hopper invented the modern compiler and the COBOL language, ushering in decades of innovation in programming languages and platforms. Languages like Fortran, Pascal, C, Java and Python evolved in a progression, where the newest language (built using an older language) enabled programmers to “code” using increasingly more human language.
Alongside languages, we’ve seen the evolution of “no-code” platforms — including Microsoft Excel, the 1980s granddaddy of no-code — that empower people to program computers in a visual interface, whether in school or in the workplace. Anytime you write a formula in a spreadsheet, or when you drag a block of code on Code.org or Scratch, you’re programming, or “coding,” a computer. “No code” is code. Every decade, a breakthrough innovation makes it easier to write code so that the old way of coding is replaced by the new.
Does this mean coding is dead? No! It doesn’t replace the need for a programmer to understand code. It means coding just got much easier, higher impact and thus more important.
This brings us to today’s announcement. Today, OpenAl announced OpenAI Codex, an entirely new way to “write code” in the natural English language. A computer programmer can now use English to describe what they want their software to do, and OpenAl’s generative Al model will automatically generate the corresponding computer code, in your choice of programming language. This is what we’ve always wanted — for computers to understand what we want them to do, and then do it, without having to go through a complex intermediary like a programming language.
But this is not an end, it is a beginning. With Al-generated code, one can imagine an evolution in every programming tool, in every programming class, and a Cambrian explosion of new software. Does this mean coding is dead? No! It doesn’t replace the need for a programmer to understand code. It means coding just got much easier, higher impact and thus more important, just as when punch cards were replaced by keyboards, or when Grace Hopper invented the compiler.
In fact, the demand for software today is greater than ever and will only continue to grow. As this technology evolves, Al will play a greater role in generating code, which will multiply the productivity and impact of computer scientists, and will make this field accessible to more and more computer programmers.
There are already tools that let you program using only drag-and-drop, or to write code using your voice. Improvements in these technologies and new tools, like OpenAI Codex, will increasingly democratize the ability to create software. As a result, the amount of code — and the number of coders — in the world will increase.
This also means that learning how to program — in a new way — is more important than ever. Learning to code can unlock doors to opportunity and also help solve global problems. As it becomes easier and more accessible to create software, we should give every student in every school the fundamental knowledge to not only be a user of technology but also a creator.
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With $29M in funding, Isovalent launches its cloud-native networking and security platform
Isovalent, a startup that aims to bring networking into the cloud-native era, today announced that it has raised a $29 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Google. In addition, the company today officially launched its Cilium Enterprise platform (which was in stealth until now) to help enterprises connect, observe and secure their applications.
The open-source Cilium project is already seeing growing adoption, with Google choosing it for its new GKE data plane, for example. Other users include Adobe, Capital One, Datadog and GitLab. Isovalent is following what is now the standard model for commercializing open-source projects by launching an enterprise version.
Image Credits: Cilium
The founding team of CEO Dan Wendlandt and CTO Thomas Graf has deep experience in working on the Linux kernel and building networking products. Graf spent 15 years working on the Linux kernel and created the Cilium open-source project, while Wendlandt worked on Open vSwitch at Nicira (and then VMware).
Image Credits: Isovalent
“We saw that first wave of network intelligence be moved into software, but I think we both shared the view that the first wave was about replicating the traditional network devices in software,” Wendlandt told me. “You had IPs, you still had ports, you created virtual routers, and this and that. We both had that shared vision that the next step was to go beyond what the hardware did in software — and now, in software, you can do so much more. Thomas, with his deep insight in the Linux kernel, really saw this eBPF technology as something that was just obviously going to be groundbreaking technology, in terms of where we could take Linux networking and security.”
As Graf told me, when Docker, Kubernetes and containers, in general, become popular, what he saw was that networking companies at first were simply trying to reapply what they had already done for virtualization. “Let’s just treat containers as many as miniature VMs. That was incredibly wrong,” he said. “So we looked around, and we saw eBPF and said: this is just out there and it is perfect, how can we shape it forward?”
And while Isovalent’s focus is on cloud-native networking, the added benefit of how it uses the eBPF Linux kernel technology is that it also gains deep insights into how data flows between services and hence allows it to add advanced security features as well.
As the team noted, though, users definitely don’t need to understand or program eBPF, which is essentially the next generation of Linux kernel modules, themselves.
Image Credits: Isovalent
“I have spent my entire career in this space, and the North Star has always been to go beyond IPs + ports and build networking visibility and security at a layer that is aligned with how developers, operations and security think about their applications and data,” said Martin Casado, partner at Andreesen Horowitz (and the founder of Nicira). “Until just recently, the technology did not exist. All of that changed with Kubernetes and eBPF. Dan and Thomas have put together the best team in the industry and given the traction around Cilium, they are well on their way to upending the world of networking yet again.”
As more companies adopt Kubernetes, they are now reaching a stage where they have the basics down but are now facing the next set of problems that come with this transition. Those, almost by default, include figuring out how to isolate workloads and get visibility into their networks — all areas where Isovalent/Cilium can help.
The team tells me its focus, now that the product is out of stealth, is about building out its go-to-market efforts and, of course, continuing to build out its platform.
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Lambda School aims to cash in by upskilling untapped talent
As the saying goes, the future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed. Also not evenly distributed: Access to the expensive education typically needed to stand a chance of obtaining one of the jobs of the future. Y Combinator backed Lambda School is hoping to change this, with a new approach to funding higher education. Read More
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