6 ms·

Programming doesn't need automation to reduce a companies needs for programmers. Cloud computing, better open source projects, and basically anything we are exc

Programming doesn't need automation to reduce a companies needs for programmers. Cloud computing, better open source projects, and basically anything we are excited about reduces how many programmers you need in order to build a set of product features in comparison with say even 5 years ago, go 10 years back and it gets worse.

adrianN 10y ago
Luckily, there seems to be a near endless amount of things that can be improved with software, so that more automation doesn't mean that programmers lose their job, instead we just solve more problems with software.
astrodust 10y ago
It's not programming that needs to be "automated" but the project process. If you could shave 30% off of meeting times you can probably boost productivity by 50% or more.
Michielvv 10y ago
At the same time, what is expected from those solutions in terms of features, usability, security and reliability also grows. So I'm not sure it will get worse, it will however change the skill set required. As it has been changing since programming exists.
braveo 10y ago
That's not programming, that's devops. I think we can all agree that the more we automate deployments and the like, the better, but when people talk about automating "programming", they are absolute not talking about automating pushing new versions to the cloud, etc.
- solomatov 10y ago
  IMO, devops is just a special kind of programming.
  - craigvn 10y ago
    IMO, devops is a special kind of sysadmin, one where you get rid of the sysadmin and tell the developer to do it.
    - solomatov 10y ago
      Devops is a highly automated sysadmin job. When we automate something, we write code. When we write code, we want to make it maintainable, which developers are usually good at, but sysadmins are not. Most of good devops who I worked with came to this field from development, not from sysadmin.
      - braveo 10y ago
        And yet, we don't continue calling a sysadmin turned programmer a sysadmin, so why would you insist that we call a programmer who turns sysadmin a programmer? It doesn't really matter where they came from, or what's involved in the job, they're sys admins. No one calls a physicist a programer because the simulation software they wrote could've been written better by a professional developer, they just call them physicists.
        solomatov 10y ago
        I think, the difference between devops and programmer is similar to the difference between a programmer in OOP and a programmer in a functional language. Or a programmer in a commonly used programming language and programmer in DSL.
        braveo 10y ago
        I think the difference between devops and a programmer is that they're 2 different titles that describe two different responsibilities in the long term maintenance of software inside a company.
      - vacri 10y ago
        I just felt a million sysadmin voices cry out and be suddenly silenced at the thought of developers caring more about maintainability than them. Sysadmins are the ones that have to maintain all the crap that is thrown over the fence at them, whilst the developers go chase the new shiny.
openasocket 10y ago
Yes and no. Yes, with those things the productivity per programmer is much higher. But the trend seems to be that increased productivity per programmer simply increases the work demanded to create products. The easier it is to add features to a project, the more features customers (and thus managers) will demand. This whole "everything will be automated and we'll all be out of work" argument I think is similar to the mistake made by Malthus, who famously predicted the world would become overpopulated and be unable to feed itself by the 20th century. There are several mistakes in his work, but one of the most prominent is not accounting for the fact that agricultural technology, and thus yields, also increase exponentially.
- cortesoft 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
HillaryBriss 10y ago
as efficiencies are introduced to the ecosystem, human demands on the ecosystem grow too

adrianN 10y ago

Luckily, there seems to be a near endless amount of things that can be improved with software, so that more automation doesn't mean that programmers lose their job, instead we just solve more problems with software.

astrodust 10y ago

It's not programming that needs to be "automated" but the project process. If you could shave 30% off of meeting times you can probably boost productivity by 50% or more.

Michielvv 10y ago

At the same time, what is expected from those solutions in terms of features, usability, security and reliability also grows. So I'm not sure it will get worse, it will however change the skill set required. As it has been changing since programming exists.

braveo 10y ago

That's not programming, that's devops. I think we can all agree that the more we automate deployments and the like, the better, but when people talk about automating "programming", they are absolute not talking about automating pushing new versions to the cloud, etc.

solomatov 10y ago
IMO, devops is just a special kind of programming.
- craigvn 10y ago
  IMO, devops is a special kind of sysadmin, one where you get rid of the sysadmin and tell the developer to do it.
  - solomatov 10y ago
    Devops is a highly automated sysadmin job. When we automate something, we write code. When we write code, we want to make it maintainable, which developers are usually good at, but sysadmins are not. Most of good devops who I worked with came to this field from development, not from sysadmin.
    - braveo 10y ago
      And yet, we don't continue calling a sysadmin turned programmer a sysadmin, so why would you insist that we call a programmer who turns sysadmin a programmer? It doesn't really matter where they came from, or what's involved in the job, they're sys admins. No one calls a physicist a programer because the simulation software they wrote could've been written better by a professional developer, they just call them physicists.
      - solomatov 10y ago
        I think, the difference between devops and programmer is similar to the difference between a programmer in OOP and a programmer in a functional language. Or a programmer in a commonly used programming language and programmer in DSL.
        braveo 10y ago
        I think the difference between devops and a programmer is that they're 2 different titles that describe two different responsibilities in the long term maintenance of software inside a company.
    - vacri 10y ago
      I just felt a million sysadmin voices cry out and be suddenly silenced at the thought of developers caring more about maintainability than them. Sysadmins are the ones that have to maintain all the crap that is thrown over the fence at them, whilst the developers go chase the new shiny.

openasocket 10y ago

Yes and no. Yes, with those things the productivity per programmer is much higher. But the trend seems to be that increased productivity per programmer simply increases the work demanded to create products. The easier it is to add features to a project, the more features customers (and thus managers) will demand. This whole "everything will be automated and we'll all be out of work" argument I think is similar to the mistake made by Malthus, who famously predicted the world would become overpopulated and be unable to feed itself by the 20th century. There are several mistakes in his work, but one of the most prominent is not accounting for the fact that agricultural technology, and thus yields, also increase exponentially.

cortesoft 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

HillaryBriss 10y ago

as efficiencies are introduced to the ecosystem, human demands on the ecosystem grow too