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The Programmer's Paradox: The End of Coding as We Know It

theprogrammersparadox.blogspot.com

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Re: The Programmer's Paradox: The End of Coding as We Know It

#21

Post by btwelch »

jason wrote: post #15

Todays typesetter is the sysadmin not the programmer. As the authors improve software to lower maintenance and hardware is moved to the cloud one sysadmin will do more than the IT dept could ever do. Help desk function will also shrink as users become more savvy, workstations more secure, and recovery automation ubiquitous. But remember type setters had a good run in the west, 1450 - 1960's.

I agree, but programming will follow suit.

CASE didn't cut it because business users, the REAL target customers for CASE, weren't savvy enough yet. Now, business users are just as likely to look at code as they are business requirements. I see this often in my work. So, the original idea of replacing unkempt engineers with smooth business people can probably move forward soon.

But, don't get me wrong, it won't be because business users are now savvy enough to take on hard-core programming. Rather it will be due to an active open-source community, who have been working to give business users big chunks of modular functionality that they can use like Duplo blocks to build the software solutions they need.

In the corporate world, the future role of software developers, to me, is seeming to tend towards a Business Analyst/Systems Engineering role-combination.

Re: The Programmer's Paradox: The End of Coding as We Know It

#22

Post by gnaritas »

btwelch wrote: post #21
jason wrote: post #15

Todays typesetter is the sysadmin not the programmer. As the authors improve software to lower maintenance and hardware is moved to the cloud one sysadmin will do more than the IT dept could ever do. Help desk function will also shrink as users become more savvy, workstations more secure, and recovery automation ubiquitous. But remember type setters had a good run in the west, 1450 - 1960's.

I agree, but programming will follow suit. CASE didn't cut it because business users, the REAL target customers for CASE, weren't savvy enough yet. Now, business users are just as likely to look at code as they are business requirements. I see this often in my work. So, the original idea of replacing unkempt engineers with smooth business people can probably move forward soon. But, don't get me wrong, it won't be bec…

The problem is businesses are never satisfied with the duplo blocks, it gives them no competitive advantage. They nearly always want highly customized software that precisely fits their needs; no, programmers aren't going anywhere any time soon.

Re: The Programmer's Paradox: The End of Coding as We Know It

#24

Post by thismat »

eru wrote: post #20
biohacker42 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are still A LOT of hardware engineers, and compiler developers. And I'm pretty sure writing drivers requires knowledge of assembly.

You are both right.

Let's not forget all those lines of COBOL that still need to be supported!

Re: The Programmer's Paradox: The End of Coding as We Know It

#25

Post by stcredzero »

neilk wrote: post #23

No Silver Bullet.

However, much of what I've done in corporate IT is basically like plumbing. You connect this here with that there, and make sure all the fittings are secure and compatible. In the case of data, you have to sometimes transform the form data takes. This will become less of an issue as interchange standards take hold in the most computing intensive industries. These will grow into defacto data standards, then you'll only have n transformations to build where you once had n^2.

I know of people who used this n^2 to n reduction to tie together corporate data at a major energy company, producing "miraculous" results. It's only a matter of time for the economics to overcome corporate cultural inertia. (Which is often actually heavier in IT than elsewhere!)

I am also seeing this at play at a major bank I'm doing work for. It's changed the internal culture of IT from:

    This system is my territory, which I shall defend 
    viciously.
to:

    I gain fame and respect by publishing my data as Web 
    Services and being useful to as many other groups in 
    the company as possible.
It's changed this major bank's IT from the Cathedral to the Bazaar!

Re: The Programmer's Paradox: The End of Coding as We Know It

#26

Post by phomer »

Confusion wrote: post #8
brc wrote: post #7

Comparison with typesetters is not valid. Typesetting as a job may have disappeared but design of text and fonts certainly has not. In my last year of university, I had a class on data modelling. The lecturer wisely told us that we should abandon learning code because CASE systems would take over within 2 years. That was 1993, and CASE slipped beneath the waters in a few years. It's true that with improving languages…

Typesetting is nowhere near as complex as programming. You have much fewer freedoms to play with and hence much less room for creativity. This comparison is not just invalid: it doesn't make any sense. He uses the fallacy of the false dichotomy: either something is intellectual work, or it requires little thinking. Since typesetting was 'intellectual work' and isn't required anymore, so will programming vanish. The f…

I'm not actually trying to say that programming is the same as typesetting. I just wanted it as an example of a 'profession' that came and went purely because of technology.

That's why I went on to describe a model that could minimize programming and heavily reuse any earlier efforts. It is the possibility that the model is implementable that could cause a major reduction in the need for skilled programmers. Typesetting just lays out a historic pattern.

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