I know in the case of CNC manufacturing, the devices were essentially programmable lathes and one can talk of a "CNC programmer" but the system was designed to

I know in the case of CNC manufacturing, the devices were essentially programmable lathes and one can talk of a "CNC programmer" but the system was designed to leverage the existing knowledge and population of manual lathe operators and there's no relation to computer programmers and instead the "touch stone" is ordinary lath operation There is a fascinating book "Forces of Production" [0] that analyzes the history of the development of numerical control in the 1960s that argues exactly the opposite. I read it many years ago, but I will try to summarize it TLDR style below: Before software ate the world there were two competing approaches to automating machine tools: - Record and Playback: a skilled machinist makes the part and the motions and operations are recorded. Subsequent parts can be made by playing back the recording on a machine with the assistance of a less skilled worker. - Numerical Control: A white collar worker in an office writes a script (in G Code [1]) to control the tool which is then played on the machine attended by a less skilled worker. This was a hard problem at the time and technically Record and Playback was easier and worked better. However management, particularly at GE, resented the power of the skilled machinists who had effective unions and were not replaceable in the event of a strike. So despite the advantages of Record/Playback they persisted for years to create the NC technology as it let them replace highly skilled union labor with coding monkeys. The parallels with the present day seem obvious but oddly underappreciated. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/625055.Forces_of_Production https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/625055.Forces_of_Product... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-code