@Jester Elly: As for a tree falling with no one around to hear it, I was taking the old question in a more metaphorical sense. That is to say if a tree falls and no person is around to acknowledge it, does it still have an effect? I believe it does, for one the tree falling effects the surrounding atoms which, in turn, effect their surrounding atoms and so on. Moreover the tree, now lying on the ground, has a different effect on wind, it provides a different living environment for microscopic and macroscopic organisms which, over time, creates an entirely new micro ecosystem that grows and ultimately has an effect on the macro ecosystem which, of course, effects all of us. So even though no one knew the tree fell, the effect that this tree has on the surrounding environment ultimately makes a difference in all of our lives no matter how big or small.
It plays into the Chaos Theory’s Butterfly Effect in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. Others might refer to this as a chain reaction, for instance a proton is a sub-atomic particle so you might think a single proton rather insignificant, but a single proton can give rise to a several thousand megaton atomic blast.
In response to things getting done, as far as what people do and do not want to do, I would say that even though no one in my household particularly enjoys washing dishes the dishes still get washed even though no one is paid for the job. Ultimately that which needs to be done will be done by those that need and/or want it done. That’s really just a law of nature, if you want a tomato then you need to plant a seed, nurture the plant and harvest the fruit.
And back around to the original topic, I wouldn’t be surprised if this DARPA technology goes mainstream someday, but even still I’m sure there will be those that prefer to complete their own programs, myself likely to be one of them. Similar to a car, even though automatic transmissions exist and do a fine job of shifting gears there are many driving enthusiasts who still prefer a manual transmission simply because they want to enjoy the full driving experience.
Also like cars, even though we have expensive manufacturing plants turning out high tech vehicles, custom hand made vehicles are still in high demand and there are those artists who take great care to ensure that each and every bolt is tightly fit and polished because it’s what they love doing. Those cars are often far more expensive partly because there is a smaller supply, but also because the cars themselves are of much greater quality.
The Ford SVT Mustang Cobra, for instance, unlike other Mustangs the Cobra’s engine is hand made and even signed by the engineers that built it. This serves to ensure that each engine has the highest probability to perform at or above specification. Moreover, to the best of my knowlege, Lamborghini’s are hand made, in fact I believe most of the highest performing vehicles are hand made and also bear a price tag that towers above their machine made counterparts.
So I would say this DARPA technology might hold the capability to automate the programming business in much the same way machines have automated the automotive industry. In other words it would likely only flood the market with bland, run of the mill applications that are more prone to failure, but certainly won’t replace the expert craftsmanship of an application hand made with passion.
P.S. A meteorologist actually made steps towards proving portions of Chaos Theory quite some time ago using climate models, believe it or not. By rounding a few variables in a climate model from six decimal places to three in order to observe the changes. It was believed that such a small change would only effect the climate model’s prediction by a very small amount, but, in fact, the generated predictions were entirely different.
Again, Chaos Theory seeks to describe that tiny, seemingly insignificant changes can, and often do, make very large differences. In that particular experiment it was observed that a change of just one billionth of a unit could change the weather patterns across the entire planet.