"I think sometimes programmers forget that their primary job is to create a world where we need less programmers, not more."
I've consistently expressed various forms of this sentiment on https://blog.codinghorror.com since 2004, I posted those specific words in 2018, and .. that's still the job, people. That's the job. Always has been. Always will be.
@codinghorror when people ask me about my job as a programmer, I always tell them, that it is a strange one, because I constantly work on tools and systems that make "me" redundant.
Why? Isnt programming just speech?
Less programming specifically.
Less labour generally.
@codinghorror shouldn't this be inverted? It's to create a world where it's much easier for people to solve their own needs with software? This is the right goal, and it could dramatically increase the demand for software and not affect the number of programmers needed.
@codinghorror that’s kinda like saying the purpose of a carpenter is to have fewer carpenters.
Aside from ignoring that some people enjoy doing it, the amount of software and its complexity is growing which isn’t a recipe for fewer developers.
@fds again we are talking about atoms versus bytes. Not the same thing. Electrons easier to work with.
@codinghorror The quality and lifetime wood projects vs software might disprove that. Regardless I think it will take a lot more than LLMs have a meaningful effect. Any effects on early career devs at this point is just a problem waiting to surface. Looking at one data point to prove something is kinda meaningless. As an example crunchbase says start-ups have been in decline. Is that because of LLMs? Seems unlikely if someone can achieve more with less but it has an effect on jobs.
@codinghorror I think the most important word in that sentence is "need." It's fine to create more opportunities for people to make a living as software engineers; it's a fun career! But it's probably true that if we make it so more people "need" to become programmers because the world we're building "needs" more programmers to keep going, we're probably doing something very wrong.
@Legit_Spaghetti it's sort of like car repair. Is it really a good world when we need a LOT of car repair people, all over the place, all the time? (and also what type of car?)
@codinghorror @Legit_Spaghetti
it is NOT the primary job of a car repairers to make a world that requires fewer car repairers. their primary job is to fix your car! preferably quickly and cheaply
@dveditz @Legit_Spaghetti well
Yeah but they can’t build cars out of electrons
