I think the future of programming lies in the same place the future of the motor does. A quick era of massive expansion followed by the technology hitting a fairly impassable brick wall and our ideals about it's possibilities becoming sensible.

There are still people out there that believe it is possible to create a technological singularity where a computer can become infinitely smart by improving itself. This is like people pre-relativity thinking we will travel instantly to anywhere if we keep making vehicles faster.

Ultimately we've had hyper efficient, complex, thinking machines around for years, easily produced, and constantly finding ways to improve their capabilities. They just demand food, water, and payment, and aren't great at menial tasks.

So we make something that is, and we are finding that with things like neural networks and machine learning, as computers become as smart and capable as humans are they are losing that "ultra efficient" trait and start making the same stupid mistakes, generalities, and creative failures that humans are.

We will reach a day where the computer is nothing more than a device we use for things. Today it is a cultural and technological icon of the present power of technology, tomorrow computers will be a fact of life like the telephone, the atom bomb, or the car.