Beyond Files: Reimagining writing code in a distributed AI-powered era

In 1960s code made the jump from holes in cardboard to digital text on a file system. Can we make another jump? Modern IDEs already hint at the need: all the useful bits work hard to turn text in files into graphs or abstractions. We search, link, build graphs, reformat, and re-model. It’s not just IDEs, even humans spend most of their time reading code just to re-model it in their heads.

Let’s imagine one possible jump. All functions, classes and statements are distributed abstractions in a graph. Dependencies become fungible instead of hard-wired. Better yet, we can use AI fulfill ad-hoc statement of intentions by summoning new packages into existence. Imagine a possible future where every particle of code is shared and written by countless unknown authors, human or otherwise. Be amazed as we escape dependency hell and make AI a productive yet invisible collaborator.