4 ms·

Exactly. That's what OP meant. Those logic are defined by business and then translated to implementation logic by dev. Today there are many situations where

by achow 5y ago

Exactly. That's what OP meant. Those logic are defined by business and then translated to implementation logic by dev. Today there are many situations where one can remove outsourced dev shops, if business themselves can implement the logic that is there in their head. Lowest hanging fruits are perhaps internal IT Tools and workflows.

LouisSayers 5y ago
If only this were true. In my experience business people have a hard time defining logic to the level of granularity that a developer requires. Even if it's simply a matter of wiring things up, you'd essentially require the developer mindset / training to understand how to wire everything up to accomplish the business objective. Not to mention knowing exactly what tools to do this in and ensuring any new systems can talk with older ones etc. Developer jobs aren't going anywhere, it may get quicker to accomplish a task but you're still going to need people who understand the finer details and are able to take a human requirement and break it down and wire things up.
- nightski 5y ago
  This aligns with my 10 year experience as a consultant working with C suite level executives as well. The people I have worked with are extremely smart and have incredible knowledge about their business. They can think through the happy path quite well. But when it comes to edge cases, error handling, and detailed logic they generally do not have the education/training to think about this properly. I've converted a few access databases in my day which were surprisingly sophisticated yet the lack of rigor was very transparent. There were good reasons they needed to transition to software written by a developer.
lifeisstillgood 5y ago
I have a theory of "software literacy" where software is a new form of literacy - and everyone should become literate. All you are saying here is that businesses will be populated by people who can ... read and write. I think there will come a time when businesses stop outsourcing their reading and writing to external dev shops, but that's not the idea you are thinking about. IMO your idea is "a dev shop will write lots of paragraphs in such a way they can be fitted together by an illiterate person using config" I think putting it that way highlights the problems Edit: another way to look at it is that managers "design" a company with policies and hiring etc. When a company is "software mediated" then the management is now one step removed from reality of the design of the company - the code is the design and the coders are the new managers Before software you were hiring people to follow your written policies and your occasional orders as policy did not meet reality. Now with software mediated companies, you are hiring people to write the actual policies - and as you do not / cannot be specific enough except in code the actual design is done for the managers - in short management moves to be either the coders or the managers are investors. Either way the "management" work becomes that of coders. And management this means writing code. Don't write code? not a manager. you can be an investor, a visionary, an accountant and budget holder. All fine. but not actually an executive
- achow 5y ago
  I was actually talking about former - stop outsourcing 'reading and writing' to dev shops. Rules and policies are quite intricately thought through and they get refined as and when 'bugs' or 'holes' are detected (to the detriment of work culture - yet another condition for buying paperclips). It is often software implementation which does not take care of all ifs and buts, as nobody has patience to write a detailed specs. Most often software tools addresses only frequent cases; when it comes to outliers and exceptions one defaults to 'manual methods' (emails, meetings, face to face talks, etc). Software implementations can be way behind when trying to keep pace with system intricacies that human minds can conjure up.
  - lifeisstillgood 5y ago
    But the "intricacies human minds conjure up" can themselves be coded - I mean they are rules that at least two humans have agreed on (at least enough to transact) The fact that most IT systems are behind is just saying most companies are not software mediated enough, yet. And all the robot automation and so on happening across all companies is a recognition that there needs to be deeper mediation - the implications may not be well thought through but the more a companies processes and decisions are made explicit in software the more change will be forced As an example just think of volkswagen - someone had to explicitly code up "lie on the exhaust emissions test". if that is not raising / surfacing all explicit rules and assumptions i don't know what is !
- silvestrov 5y ago
  I don't think you can get most people to be literate in programming. "programming" is to "business logic" like "spelling" is to "writing novels". You don't get to be a Dostoevsky by being very good at spelling. Being able to tell good stories is much more important than spelling. You don't get everyone to be a good author by providing them with a tape recorder so they don't have to spell. Programmers are very good at thinking in logic. Programmming languages are just a detail in this. Programming is the ability to formulate what the rules should be exactly. Most (business) people are not able to be that precise no matter the tools you provide them.
ramoz 5y ago
I disagree with the systems aspects, and actually think logic is more automated. I imagine 2 advanced crafts, Design Engineering (UI), and Systems Engineering (distributed, low level, cloud native, and… data). Everything in between (full stack, APIS, req/res handling, DB integration, data processing, etc) can all be automated efficiently. Those previous two areas seem to continuously evolve, while APIs and their integration are pretty straight forward and have been for a long time. I believe AI to be the reason why those two can’t be automated, coincidentally. AI applications require new architectures, AIUX, advanced UI metrics, etc.

by achow 5y ago

LouisSayers 5y ago

If only this were true. In my experience business people have a hard time defining logic to the level of granularity that a developer requires. Even if it's simply a matter of wiring things up, you'd essentially require the developer mindset / training to understand how to wire everything up to accomplish the business objective. Not to mention knowing exactly what tools to do this in and ensuring any new systems can talk with older ones etc. Developer jobs aren't going anywhere, it may get quicker to accomplish a task but you're still going to need people who understand the finer details and are able to take a human requirement and break it down and wire things up.

nightski 5y ago
This aligns with my 10 year experience as a consultant working with C suite level executives as well. The people I have worked with are extremely smart and have incredible knowledge about their business. They can think through the happy path quite well. But when it comes to edge cases, error handling, and detailed logic they generally do not have the education/training to think about this properly. I've converted a few access databases in my day which were surprisingly sophisticated yet the lack of rigor was very transparent. There were good reasons they needed to transition to software written by a developer.

lifeisstillgood 5y ago

I have a theory of "software literacy" where software is a new form of literacy - and everyone should become literate. All you are saying here is that businesses will be populated by people who can ... read and write. I think there will come a time when businesses stop outsourcing their reading and writing to external dev shops, but that's not the idea you are thinking about. IMO your idea is "a dev shop will write lots of paragraphs in such a way they can be fitted together by an illiterate person using config" I think putting it that way highlights the problems Edit: another way to look at it is that managers "design" a company with policies and hiring etc. When a company is "software mediated" then the management is now one step removed from reality of the design of the company - the code is the design and the coders are the new managers Before software you were hiring people to follow your written policies and your occasional orders as policy did not meet reality. Now with software mediated companies, you are hiring people to write the actual policies - and as you do not / cannot be specific enough except in code the actual design is done for the managers - in short management moves to be either the coders or the managers are investors. Either way the "management" work becomes that of coders. And management this means writing code. Don't write code? not a manager. you can be an investor, a visionary, an accountant and budget holder. All fine. but not actually an executive

achow 5y ago
I was actually talking about former - stop outsourcing 'reading and writing' to dev shops. Rules and policies are quite intricately thought through and they get refined as and when 'bugs' or 'holes' are detected (to the detriment of work culture - yet another condition for buying paperclips). It is often software implementation which does not take care of all ifs and buts, as nobody has patience to write a detailed specs. Most often software tools addresses only frequent cases; when it comes to outliers and exceptions one defaults to 'manual methods' (emails, meetings, face to face talks, etc). Software implementations can be way behind when trying to keep pace with system intricacies that human minds can conjure up.
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  But the "intricacies human minds conjure up" can themselves be coded - I mean they are rules that at least two humans have agreed on (at least enough to transact) The fact that most IT systems are behind is just saying most companies are not software mediated enough, yet. And all the robot automation and so on happening across all companies is a recognition that there needs to be deeper mediation - the implications may not be well thought through but the more a companies processes and decisions are made explicit in software the more change will be forced As an example just think of volkswagen - someone had to explicitly code up "lie on the exhaust emissions test". if that is not raising / surfacing all explicit rules and assumptions i don't know what is !
silvestrov 5y ago
I don't think you can get most people to be literate in programming. "programming" is to "business logic" like "spelling" is to "writing novels". You don't get to be a Dostoevsky by being very good at spelling. Being able to tell good stories is much more important than spelling. You don't get everyone to be a good author by providing them with a tape recorder so they don't have to spell. Programmers are very good at thinking in logic. Programmming languages are just a detail in this. Programming is the ability to formulate what the rules should be exactly. Most (business) people are not able to be that precise no matter the tools you provide them.

ramoz 5y ago

I disagree with the systems aspects, and actually think logic is more automated. I imagine 2 advanced crafts, Design Engineering (UI), and Systems Engineering (distributed, low level, cloud native, and… data). Everything in between (full stack, APIS, req/res handling, DB integration, data processing, etc) can all be automated efficiently. Those previous two areas seem to continuously evolve, while APIs and their integration are pretty straight forward and have been for a long time. I believe AI to be the reason why those two can’t be automated, coincidentally. AI applications require new architectures, AIUX, advanced UI metrics, etc.