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Every day, almost every programmer in the world works to make programming applications simpler. I have been coding for a good many years and there is no doubt it is easier to do complex things today than it was just, say, 5 years ago. Sure we are doing more complex things to make up for it, but at least now simple things are simple to do (that step 1). I can not understand why anyone would believe that programming will always have the same complexity when that has clearly not been the case up to now.
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I think for programmer like IDE user it will become simpler, but for people who design programming / framework it will become harder.
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I see it as complex things today will be abstracted and simplified. Yet as today's complex projects become simple and our understanding increases, the boundaries of programming will be pushed even further and newer, emerging problems will be even more complex.
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I think if we look back, we realize that it has always become simpler to program as the years pass by. Today we accomplish much more with a lot less effort than before.
Under the hood and inside the APIs the complexity is hidden, but the programming task itself has become simpler, unless for some very specific tasks like programming against hardware.
I don't see why this movement could have a tendency to invert. That's why I believe programming will always become simpler, even if the amount of simplicity again diminishes.
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson
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case 1:
at beginning:
a>debug
jump C800:0005
and BIOS menu appears to format a drive
now you can right click a disk and format, many time in wrong format or deleting important data
case 2:
start floppy
LOAD driver x
LOAD xxx
LOAD yyy
BIND zzz
LOAD INSTALL
and you can install a Novell Netware
now with autoplay a W2008R2 server can be up and running (with all kinds of unnecessary services and protocols) in 20 minutes.
case 3:
MS C version 3.0 ( 1984-85?) on two 5" floppy and 350Kb of disk requirements, external editor
now a multigigabyte DVD install dozens of wastefull tools, but with a wizard you can create a "Hello word" sample of 4Mb (why not click all those fancy checkbox ?)
Ok we can do all simpler, and more in the future.
The point is not if we will run quicker, faster and in a simpler way, but where we will run and if we understand that technologies are only a (small) part of the solution.
 This only 'cause I have plenty of time, I need to backup my "tool and lib" dir that is 43.2Gb.. ( Signs of times )
P.S. my vote is for the choice simpler
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Answering such polls with extreme sides is not useful 
I think coding might be integrated simpler in the future with advanced methods, but codes would be more complicated and structured for sure.
Bekir Sait
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More and more frameworks will be introduced, each carefully designed to make conversion of code to any other framework all but impossible.
Furthermore, intensive lobbying at the EU will pass laws making it illegal to create any tools that convert framework based code written in EU Member States to be converted to US-based frameworks.
China will, as usual, be allowed to do what they want because they will, anyway.
Framework hacking will be the most important and prestigious coding field. Interpol will be watch.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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You will always have simple programmers!
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Wow, that's kind of depressing when you think about it.
I'd say it depends how far in the future you're thinking about. Maybe a paradigm shift will yet occur that impacts computer programming in a way comparable to impact the introduction of computers has had on mathematics, theoretical physics and biology.
I was going to try change my vote, on this basis - doesn't seem possible though.
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Rob Grainger wrote: I was going to try change my vote, on this basis - doesn't seem possible though.
It's not simpler to change the vote too 
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It's because the idea of programming being made simpler and for the masses and easy to read and as easy to create as speaking has been around forever, and the closest they've ever come is VB.
We're a jaded lot.
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David Kentley wrote: the closest they've ever come is VB
You forgot COBOL.
How could you? 
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I'd think it more likely that we will get a paradigm shift that totally changes the way we program / use computers, something away from the bit-oriented-glorified-adding-machine that we all know and love.
Quantum computers?
True neural nets?
AI?
Enhancements to the brain?
I dunno - but it should be interesting (and probably totally unexpected)!
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."
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...understanding what the client actually wants - now that is the complex part. 
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Programming as such will dissapear or be completely internalised bwah ha ha
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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So, you are working on WetWare nowadays?
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."
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I want one of the interfaces Peter Hamilton thought up in Night's Dawn, wired directly into the nerosis.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Programming has become more complex, and simpler to do, in tandem as it has evolved so far. I see no reason why this should change.
In the beginning, (are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...)
When you programmed, you had to know exactly how the hardware worked, and what you could do with it. You had to write pretty much everything from scratch, starting with the routine to get a key from the user, debounce it, autorepeat it, and convert it into a character your program could understand. Then you could write the routine to get a number of these characters, then the routine to convert some of those into numbers, then... Anyone who doesn't think this was complex didn't do it!
There was not a lot of code-reuse in the early days - when it came in, in the form of libraries to do that basic stuff, it made our lives a whole lot simpler. So we could move on to more complex ways of using those libraries. Databases for instance - in the early days, a database was a stack of cards with (if you were lucky) a device to spit them into piles...
As we have moved on, we have made it simpler and simpler, and easier and easier to get into programming - look at Q&A if you don't believe me - but increased the complexity of what you do with the computer and the software at the same time - the simpler we make it, the more complex end result we can produce.
Will this end? No, I don't think so. Computers are more complex, but simpler to use. The tools we use are more complex, but simpler to use. And the same goes for the end result!
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."
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OriginalGriff wrote: And the same goes for the end result
What, that people are simpler (in the mind), and keeping them happy is more complex (more and more moaners about).
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I know what you mean!
I was thinking about simple stuff: delete a file in Windows 7, as opposed to delete a file in DOS. Much easier to do in 7, and also possible to undo - much more complex to implement than the DOS version.
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."
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8 bits at a time, and this is still being used. 
CLEAR_RAM:
CLRA
STA RAM_STRT
LDHX #RAM_STRT+1 ;CLEAR FIRST RAM AREA
LOOP_1:
MOV RAM_STRT,X+
CPHX #RAM_END
BLO LOOP_1
LDHX #NEXT_RAM ;CLEAR NEXT RAM AREA
LOOP_2:
MOV RAM_STRT,X+
CPHX #RAM_END_2
BLO LOOP_2
CLRH
CLRX
RTS
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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Ah! I preferred the Z80 version:
LD HL,RAM_START
LD DE,RAM_START+1
LD BC,RAM_SIZE
XOR A
LD (HL),A
LDIR
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."
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I'd forgotten that!
My least favorite recalled unintentional delete was the accidental unplugging of the power supply on the 8080A trainer on the fifth to the last line of a 600 line step program to be entered.
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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...followed by copious swearing!
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."
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