Definitely an interesting analogy, I find it uncharitable towards the state of software engineering though. Whereas alchemy/chemistry had to unlock a model of the microscopic world based on observation of the macro world we were born into, software engineering was the entire creation of a new world that we built from the ground up. It’s not that we don’t have a sufficient understanding to build great and precise software works, it’s just that the macro space is so large and unconstrained without the physical limitations that keep problem spaces of physical sciences more tractable and comprehensible.

I do agree SWE is still early days and will develop a lot, but I don’t think it will coalesce the way you’re suggesting though because we’ll keep dreaming up new things to do with arbitrary data and logic.