Programming Is Not a Skill
Comments on “Programming Is Not a Skill”
3 judges. Scored by all three judges. Only the day’s top stories get the claim check. How far stories are checked
The essay argues that programming has stopped being a skill in the narrow sense of hand-writing code, and that each automation wave, from FORTRAN and COBOL through low-code tools and now LLMs, has pushed the human role toward judgment, specification, and verification, which are harder to automate.
Why it ranked
No. 98 of 124 with a score of 0.57. The panel rated it highest on audience breadth (0.84) and reader interest (0.76), lowest on significance (0.55). Overclaim counted against it (0.74). The judges disagreed most on new information (spread 0.51), so the story is marked contested.
Every answer behind this is in the table under Score.
Score
0.57total under rubric v2.2Contestedjudges differ by 0.51 on new information
- Significance0.55
- Reader interest0.76
- Audience breadth0.84
- Practical relevance0.65
- Substantiated0.66
- Technical depth0.60
- New information0.72
- Counts against: Promotional0.14
- Counts against: Overclaim0.74
Each judge’s answer per question (0–1), their mean and spread, and what the question adds to the score (weight × mean).
| Question | Judge 1 | Judge 2 | Judge 3 | Mean | Spread | Weight | Contribution (weight times mean) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Significance | 0.63 | 0.35 | 0.68 | 0.55 | 0.33 | +0.24 | +0.133 |
| Reader interest | 0.66 | 0.70 | 0.91 | 0.76 | 0.25 | +0.26 | +0.197 |
| Audience breadth | 0.95 | 0.70 | 0.86 | 0.84 | 0.25 | +0.13 | +0.109 |
| Practical relevance | 0.67 | 0.55 | 0.73 | 0.65 | 0.18 | +0.22 | +0.143 |
| Substantiated | 0.73 | 0.50 | 0.76 | 0.66 | 0.26 | +0.05 | +0.033 |
| Technical depth | 0.67 | 0.50 | 0.62 | 0.60 | 0.17 | +0.05 | +0.030 |
| New information | 0.91 | 0.40 | 0.86 | 0.72 | 0.51 , above the contested threshold | +0.05 | +0.036 |
| Promotional | 0.09 | 0.20 | 0.14 | 0.14 | 0.11 | −0.19 | −0.027 |
| Overclaim | 0.60 | 0.75 | 0.88 | 0.74 | 0.28 | −0.11 | −0.082 |
| Sum of contributions | +0.572 | ||||||
| Claim-check penalty | 0.000 | ||||||
| Total, as published | 0.572 | ||||||
Spread is the highest minus the lowest judge answer. marks a spread above 0.40: the judges disagree, and the story is marked contested.
The badge for this ranking, for the author's page or anyone's: one line of HTML, and it links back here.
<a href="https://rubric.hrih.si/editions/2026-10-27/98/"><img src="https://rubric.hrih.si/badge/2026-10-27/98.svg" alt="Ranked #98 on Rubric, 27 Oct 2026" width="245" height="28"></a>Also covered by
No other coverage was clustered with this story.
Elsewhere
Elsewhere: HN 3 pts, not on front page
Recorded for context only, checked 27 Oct 2026, 05:46 UTC. It played no part in the ranking.