Learning to stop writing code (and why you won't miss it)

Daisy Hollman

⏱ 90 minute keynote
beginner
intermediate
advanced
09:00-10:30, Thursday, 3rd April 2025 - Bristol 1
Frontier AI models are transforming the craft of software engineering. Drawing from my journey from C++ standards committee to an AI research startup, I'll demonstrate how modern LLMs understand complex codebases—especially through recent research on SWE agents. Beyond theoretical foundations, I'll showcase practical examples of how these tools excel at tasks professional C++ developers struggle with daily: comprehending unfamiliar codebases, managing repositories, refactoring legacy code, and reducing boilerplate. Finally, I'll explore how programming languages might evolve to better leverage AI capabilities while maintaining the rigor C++ developers value. Despite the clickbait title, this talk is an attempt at a balanced perspective on our changing relationship with code: not eliminating programming, but elevating it to focus on design, creativity and the aspects of software engineering that truly require human expertise.

Daisy Hollman

Dr. Daisy S. Hollman is a programming language expert who recently transitioned from a decade of C++ standards work to exploring AI's impact on software engineering at Anthropic. During her time on the C++ committee (2016-2024), she made significant contributions to key features including std::mdspan, std::atomic_ref, and executors work that evolved into std::execution. Her expertise spans generic programming, metaprogramming, concurrency, and multidimensional arrays, with particular focus on the C++ ranges library where she served as chair of the standards committee study group.

After earning her Ph.D. in Quantum Chemistry in 2013, Dr. Hollman's research initially focused on programming models for computational science before expanding to address the broader challenge of making complex programming abstractions more accessible. Her work emphasizes performance portability and parallel programming paradigms, driven by a passion to create more inclusive programming languages with shallower learning curves.

Now at Anthropic, she brings her deep C++ expertise to her work with Rust, studying how programming languages will evolve alongside AI systems like Claude Code. Dr. Hollman believes that better programming languages can increase economic mobility and make technology more equitable—a vision that now extends to how AI assistants might transform the software engineering landscape.