That's not really the point. Or, rather, that really shouldn't be the point. There will always be the silly realities and quirks of computer systems that will t

That's not really the point. Or, rather, that really shouldn't be the point. There will always be the silly realities and quirks of computer systems that will take some intense local domain knowledge to work around, and for that we will always need a class of programming professionals. But programming entails a hell of a lot more than the world of computers. The words program and procedure existed before computers did; computers merely forced us to acknowledge the need for and develop a formal means of describing and discussing procedure. That kind of knowledge isn't bound by any particular class of machine, nor by any language. It applies to almost every aspect of complex endeavour. It allows people to think about how they are doing things. Just as a Karnaugh map can help a circuit designer see redundancies in logical inputs, a codified description of a process—any process—can help people see ineficiencies and redundancies in what they are doing (or what they are having other people do). Perhaps we don't really want to Taylorize the world, but if people can find ways to eliminate wasted effort, then they benefit whether they ever program a computer or not.