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>And when they land a job in the industry, where exactly are the optimization and ethics when transforming XML into JSON and back again? The programmers who ar

>And when they land a job in the industry, where exactly are the optimization and ethics when transforming XML into JSON and back again? The programmers who are mostly only capable of doing this kind of grudge work will lose their jobs and need to transition and adapt to a new form of grudge work. And yes, as you point out, that's a lot if not most of them.

smokel 2y ago
I must admit that my post was not very clear (reflecting the current state of my thoughts about this matter), but what I meant to say is exactly the opposite of your suggestion. Some people believe that AI will take our jobs, but my point is that our work is already practically trivial, yet for some odd reason we are still in short supply. As much as some of us have become JIRA slaves, our future generations will probably become AI slaves. True creative programming is beholden to a very select group of people, simply because there is so little demand for new things.
- Maxatar 2y ago
  I have multiple friends who are doctors, and they will all tell you that 95% of their work is just trivial grudge work that almost anyone can do. Most cases that come to them are easily treatable and don't really require much of any expertise to diagnose or manage. Nevertheless, doctors in many areas are in short supply and it's incredibly hard to become a doctor. Why? Because for the 5% of hard cases when you absolutely need an expert or else there are serious consequences, and it's very hard in advance to predict if someone's case is the 95% of trivial grudge work, or that 5% of critical work. Software development is the same, the vast majority of the work is trivial grudge work and there's a lot of that grudge work, enough of it to keep millions of people employed. But there's still that 5% of the time when you need to be an expert, when you need to know data structures and algorithms and good architecture and have solid knowledge of your domain. The problem with software development is that most people just take that 95% for granted, get complacent and think that the 95% of trivial work is the job and that they don't need to be prepared for the remaining 5%. My opinion, and that's all it is, is that in the future there won't be a need for that 95% of work, it will be automated and all that's left will be the remaining 5%. The people who became complacent and came to believe that their job is the 95% of trivial work will find themselves in a very difficult position.
  - billy99k 2y ago
    I total agree with you here. I was going to post almost the same thing. "The problem with software development is that most people just take that 95% for granted, get complacent and think that the 95% of trivial work is the job and that they don't need to be prepared for the remaining 5%." I have found that many developers just aren't capable of the remaining 5% and companies that hire need you for the 95% hope you can handle the rest. I'm currently a consultant for a pretty large company and I deal with their back-end software systems. Most of my job is mundane and easy. However, there have been on-fire issues where if I wasn't good at my job, the company would have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
  - weweweoo 2y ago
    "Nevertheless, doctors in many areas are in short supply and it's incredibly hard to become a doctor." At least in my country both of these things are caused by doctor's unions lobbying to limit student intake to the point where lots of perfectly capable people simply can't get admitted. It has got to the point where many go study abroad in other EU countries. Anyway, even if everyone in the workforce was capable of the 5% hard work, companies could still fire lots of people, enough to give us universal basic income or third world war. Everyone in the workforce will be affected at that point.

smokel 2y ago

I must admit that my post was not very clear (reflecting the current state of my thoughts about this matter), but what I meant to say is exactly the opposite of your suggestion. Some people believe that AI will take our jobs, but my point is that our work is already practically trivial, yet for some odd reason we are still in short supply. As much as some of us have become JIRA slaves, our future generations will probably become AI slaves. True creative programming is beholden to a very select group of people, simply because there is so little demand for new things.

Maxatar 2y ago
I have multiple friends who are doctors, and they will all tell you that 95% of their work is just trivial grudge work that almost anyone can do. Most cases that come to them are easily treatable and don't really require much of any expertise to diagnose or manage. Nevertheless, doctors in many areas are in short supply and it's incredibly hard to become a doctor. Why? Because for the 5% of hard cases when you absolutely need an expert or else there are serious consequences, and it's very hard in advance to predict if someone's case is the 95% of trivial grudge work, or that 5% of critical work. Software development is the same, the vast majority of the work is trivial grudge work and there's a lot of that grudge work, enough of it to keep millions of people employed. But there's still that 5% of the time when you need to be an expert, when you need to know data structures and algorithms and good architecture and have solid knowledge of your domain. The problem with software development is that most people just take that 95% for granted, get complacent and think that the 95% of trivial work is the job and that they don't need to be prepared for the remaining 5%. My opinion, and that's all it is, is that in the future there won't be a need for that 95% of work, it will be automated and all that's left will be the remaining 5%. The people who became complacent and came to believe that their job is the 95% of trivial work will find themselves in a very difficult position.
- billy99k 2y ago
  I total agree with you here. I was going to post almost the same thing. "The problem with software development is that most people just take that 95% for granted, get complacent and think that the 95% of trivial work is the job and that they don't need to be prepared for the remaining 5%." I have found that many developers just aren't capable of the remaining 5% and companies that hire need you for the 95% hope you can handle the rest. I'm currently a consultant for a pretty large company and I deal with their back-end software systems. Most of my job is mundane and easy. However, there have been on-fire issues where if I wasn't good at my job, the company would have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- weweweoo 2y ago
  "Nevertheless, doctors in many areas are in short supply and it's incredibly hard to become a doctor." At least in my country both of these things are caused by doctor's unions lobbying to limit student intake to the point where lots of perfectly capable people simply can't get admitted. It has got to the point where many go study abroad in other EU countries. Anyway, even if everyone in the workforce was capable of the 5% hard work, companies could still fire lots of people, enough to give us universal basic income or third world war. Everyone in the workforce will be affected at that point.