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It costs nothing to write software with software, you don't need big hulking robots to do it. But it's also a job that has lots of variety; each day you have to

It costs nothing to write software with software, you don't need big hulking robots to do it. But it's also a job that has lots of variety; each day you have to solve unexpected, frustrating, novel problems. Not a task for the average robot (or even the average person IMHO). We have software "robots" that write software and many of us use them frequently. They're called compilers. They do the repetitive and detailed stuff, often better than we can, due to pre-programmed knowledge. Programming is still challenging. That won't end in the next 50 years.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago
> We have software "robots" that write software and many of us use them frequently. They're called compilers. Compilers automate a simple but tedious translation process. They do not "write programs", they merely translate (hopefully in a deterministic way) one stream of text (PL code) into another stream of text (machine code). They apply no creativity to the problem, and indeed was once done by hand with what were essentially secretary pools (Grace Hopper got her start there, thankfully she moved up pretty quickly). Compilers eliminated this work, but the persons handing the high-level programs to the "human compilers" (the former usually men, the latter usually women, the 50s were pretty sexist) still had a job that was relatively the same (just now they had to deal with punchcards). > Programming is still challenging. That won't end in the next 50 years. Programming ends as a profession of course once we hit singularity, which is anywhere from 20 to 100 years away depending on who you ask. We already do not code many systems by hand, but instead meta-code algorithms to generate these systems from corpus training inputs (aka machine learning). No one would try and build a speech recognition system by hand anymore. We will see machine learning increasingly encroaching on what used to be pure programming tasks.
kamaal 13y ago
>>Programming is still challenging. That won't end in the next 50 years. So is building cars. Or anything for that matter. Problems in every profession have just gone to a whole new level. When automation kicks in, you won't need humans to go and solve trivial issues. And there fore what will be left is jobs for people who would like to work on things that can't be automated. Stuff like solving problems no one else has solved before. And creating something or improving something. And things on those lines. Such jobs are always going to stressful, with high chances of failure, will require thinking and working very hard, with repeated sacrifice to your personal and social life. But at the end if you do it right, you might win big. Currently that is programming, tomorrow it will something else. So as long as our species exists we will have problems to solve. And that won't end in the next 50,000 years or probably ever.
- mercer 13y ago
  Not sure if I'm agreeing or disagreeing with you, but I'd say this is exactly why programmers will do fine for a long time to come. What we do, assuming we're not cranking out wordpress sites with existing templates, is solve problems. And so when we find ways to automate particular common scenarios for, say, certain types of websites (which I suppose Rails and the many CMS' do), we have probably already moved on because we were bored cranking out these things in favor of solving problems. Contrast that with the auto industry. Car building may be hard, but much of the job loss in this industry consisted of work that was easily automated, and not solving problems. Furthermore, part of this 'problem solving', in my experience, involves a lot of interaction with other people. This is not easily replaced by outsourcing to skilled programmers who are 1) non-native culturally and linguistically, and 2) far away. In a way, we are better compared to plumbers or mechanics, 'full-stack problem solvers'.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago

> We have software "robots" that write software and many of us use them frequently. They're called compilers. Compilers automate a simple but tedious translation process. They do not "write programs", they merely translate (hopefully in a deterministic way) one stream of text (PL code) into another stream of text (machine code). They apply no creativity to the problem, and indeed was once done by hand with what were essentially secretary pools (Grace Hopper got her start there, thankfully she moved up pretty quickly). Compilers eliminated this work, but the persons handing the high-level programs to the "human compilers" (the former usually men, the latter usually women, the 50s were pretty sexist) still had a job that was relatively the same (just now they had to deal with punchcards). > Programming is still challenging. That won't end in the next 50 years. Programming ends as a profession of course once we hit singularity, which is anywhere from 20 to 100 years away depending on who you ask. We already do not code many systems by hand, but instead meta-code algorithms to generate these systems from corpus training inputs (aka machine learning). No one would try and build a speech recognition system by hand anymore. We will see machine learning increasingly encroaching on what used to be pure programming tasks.

kamaal 13y ago

>>Programming is still challenging. That won't end in the next 50 years. So is building cars. Or anything for that matter. Problems in every profession have just gone to a whole new level. When automation kicks in, you won't need humans to go and solve trivial issues. And there fore what will be left is jobs for people who would like to work on things that can't be automated. Stuff like solving problems no one else has solved before. And creating something or improving something. And things on those lines. Such jobs are always going to stressful, with high chances of failure, will require thinking and working very hard, with repeated sacrifice to your personal and social life. But at the end if you do it right, you might win big. Currently that is programming, tomorrow it will something else. So as long as our species exists we will have problems to solve. And that won't end in the next 50,000 years or probably ever.

mercer 13y ago
Not sure if I'm agreeing or disagreeing with you, but I'd say this is exactly why programmers will do fine for a long time to come. What we do, assuming we're not cranking out wordpress sites with existing templates, is solve problems. And so when we find ways to automate particular common scenarios for, say, certain types of websites (which I suppose Rails and the many CMS' do), we have probably already moved on because we were bored cranking out these things in favor of solving problems. Contrast that with the auto industry. Car building may be hard, but much of the job loss in this industry consisted of work that was easily automated, and not solving problems. Furthermore, part of this 'problem solving', in my experience, involves a lot of interaction with other people. This is not easily replaced by outsourcing to skilled programmers who are 1) non-native culturally and linguistically, and 2) far away. In a way, we are better compared to plumbers or mechanics, 'full-stack problem solvers'.