This is historicism. For example, the idea that, because compilers have eliminated most hand-optimization, that process will inexorably continue, moving furthe

This is historicism. For example, the idea that, because compilers have eliminated most hand-optimization, that process will inexorably continue, moving further up the chain of abstraction until "trivial programming" has been eliminated. The author thinks he's derived some law of historical progress. Along these lines, many smart people have predicted the "end of labor" since at least Marx. I think that predicting the future is hard and most people are better off "optimizing local minima".