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What is by far the most interesting is that software developer is becomming the most common job. So if in 30 years secretaries was replaced with smart phones an

What is by far the most interesting is that software developer is becomming the most common job. So if in 30 years secretaries was replaced with smart phones and word processing software, soon truck drivers will be replaced by self driving cars, then in 30 years (probably less) what will software developers (then maybe the most common job) be replaced with?

mrdrozdov 11y ago
It will probably require software developers to replace software developers (see the tricky logic?).
rayiner 11y ago
It depends on where you think we are on the technology curve. If you go by projections based on the rapid advancement of the aerospace field from 1940-1970, we're about 20-30 years late on having regular hypersonic flight between DC and London. Same story for things like fusion. AI as a field plateaued somewhere in the 1970's. Much of the recent innovation has come from applying existing, understood techniques to ever more amounts of data (enabled by faster processors, and data sources like GPS and digitized map data). But it's possible that AI that can code programs will require fundamental leaps in the field. In fact it's quite probable--we don't even really understand what such an AI would look like. At least with things like fusion or hypersonic commuter travel, which are still far away, we understand roughly what the solution would look like, we just face massive engineering challenges.
a3n 11y ago
Today we inefficiently train H1B humans to take over our job in place, or to move the job and the recorded job procedures to India or elsewhere. In 30 years, those of us left will efficiently train computers to take over our jobs. In the cloud!
throwaway13337 11y ago
Software developers are already marginalized by tech. Across the board, we get better and better at developing software. As a software developer, the job has changed from being good at writing software to being good at putting lego pieces together. It takes less people now to build: a simple video game, a SaaS web app, a mobile app - the common things we get paid to do. And because of SaaS proliferation, there need not be as much custom internal software. This used to be a huge chuck of the work for devs. Devops, too, removes need for as many 'it guys'. The need for more software continues to outpace the trend of needing less developers to create it. For how long will that be the case?
- justinhj 11y ago
  I've been a software developer working on video games for 20 years and as simple things become easy we find more difficult things to do. When game machines solved the problem of moving lots of 2d sprites around we wanted to make 3D games. When flat shaded 3D moved to hardware we wanted texture mapping. Now even a mobile phone game will have people writing pixel and vertex shaders. Then there's mmo technology where we have to build and run servers for millions of players with no downtime. In my industry at least team sizes have only ever gone up as has complexity.
  - throwaway13337 11y ago
    Right - I should have been clearer when I wrote 'more software' which, to me, means more complex software. So our needs change over time towards better and better software but there might be a ceiling to software needs for the majority of applications.

mrdrozdov 11y ago

It will probably require software developers to replace software developers (see the tricky logic?).

rayiner 11y ago

It depends on where you think we are on the technology curve. If you go by projections based on the rapid advancement of the aerospace field from 1940-1970, we're about 20-30 years late on having regular hypersonic flight between DC and London. Same story for things like fusion. AI as a field plateaued somewhere in the 1970's. Much of the recent innovation has come from applying existing, understood techniques to ever more amounts of data (enabled by faster processors, and data sources like GPS and digitized map data). But it's possible that AI that can code programs will require fundamental leaps in the field. In fact it's quite probable--we don't even really understand what such an AI would look like. At least with things like fusion or hypersonic commuter travel, which are still far away, we understand roughly what the solution would look like, we just face massive engineering challenges.

a3n 11y ago

Today we inefficiently train H1B humans to take over our job in place, or to move the job and the recorded job procedures to India or elsewhere. In 30 years, those of us left will efficiently train computers to take over our jobs. In the cloud!

throwaway13337 11y ago

Software developers are already marginalized by tech. Across the board, we get better and better at developing software. As a software developer, the job has changed from being good at writing software to being good at putting lego pieces together. It takes less people now to build: a simple video game, a SaaS web app, a mobile app - the common things we get paid to do. And because of SaaS proliferation, there need not be as much custom internal software. This used to be a huge chuck of the work for devs. Devops, too, removes need for as many 'it guys'. The need for more software continues to outpace the trend of needing less developers to create it. For how long will that be the case?

justinhj 11y ago
I've been a software developer working on video games for 20 years and as simple things become easy we find more difficult things to do. When game machines solved the problem of moving lots of 2d sprites around we wanted to make 3D games. When flat shaded 3D moved to hardware we wanted texture mapping. Now even a mobile phone game will have people writing pixel and vertex shaders. Then there's mmo technology where we have to build and run servers for millions of players with no downtime. In my industry at least team sizes have only ever gone up as has complexity.
- throwaway13337 11y ago
  Right - I should have been clearer when I wrote 'more software' which, to me, means more complex software. So our needs change over time towards better and better software but there might be a ceiling to software needs for the majority of applications.