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A great deal of programming is "maintenance work"---finding clever ways to automate data transactions, configurations, or physical migrations that could in theo
by fixermark 13y ago
A great deal of programming is "maintenance work"---finding clever ways to automate data transactions, configurations, or physical migrations that could in theory be automated (i.e. describing what I want to do is straightforward such as "I want to move all the data from Duluth to Kookamunga") but for various reasons has not yet been (happens too infrequently to justify the cost, has too many 'sharp edges' in terms of unexpected scenarios, data is too sensitive to trust it to an automated process).
A combination of software-as-a-service and ever-better automation tools will start to erode the number of programmers needed for those sort of roles. In fact, there's an old saw about a good software engineer being one who codes themselves out of a job. ;)
- wlievens 13y agoI think operating the hypothetical Nth generation high-level tools for the tasks you describe (let's call it ETL?) are still considered programming, as the difference between today's tools and the tool you describe is probably smaller than the difference between the nineteen fifties' tools and today's.