Elimination of Programmers

Even if we accept that it is a worthy goal to eliminate the need for programmers, I don't think it's possible. That's because programmers have skills and abilities other than just their knowledge of programming languages.

Let's say that someone does manage to write a tool that allows people to define software and control its behavior without having to write code. The person using this tool will still need all of the other mental abilities of a programmer. If this were to happen, we haven't eliminated the programmer; we just changed the job description a little.