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7/1/2025, 11:26:47 AM
>>105762975
Fifty years ago, it was SQL that was the hot new thing that was going to do away with "system analysts". Managers could ask questions in an easy to use English like language to get the data they needed without requiring a programmer. Then managers encountered joins and that was the end of that. SQL made things easier for programmers but managers still needed programmers.
Over the past half century, dozens of new things have come around that was going to eliminate the need for programmers. Many simply disappeared, others were adopted by programmers, making things easier for them and opening the career to a larger pool of less intelligent programmers. But the need for them never went away, it increased instead.
>But it's different this time.
Sure, it might be but that's what was believed every other time too. In the end, managers aren't interested in getting their hands dirty and exercising their brains by getting into specifics instead of the vague notions they typically communicate to employees. Ultimately, that's what software development is about: converting manager head canon into something the computer can use to produce a product. LLMs so far aren't able to do this any better than humans. They can churn out lots of source code quickly, but they still can't figure out management intent very well. Perhaps that will change. Perhaps not. Time will tell.
Fifty years ago, it was SQL that was the hot new thing that was going to do away with "system analysts". Managers could ask questions in an easy to use English like language to get the data they needed without requiring a programmer. Then managers encountered joins and that was the end of that. SQL made things easier for programmers but managers still needed programmers.
Over the past half century, dozens of new things have come around that was going to eliminate the need for programmers. Many simply disappeared, others were adopted by programmers, making things easier for them and opening the career to a larger pool of less intelligent programmers. But the need for them never went away, it increased instead.
>But it's different this time.
Sure, it might be but that's what was believed every other time too. In the end, managers aren't interested in getting their hands dirty and exercising their brains by getting into specifics instead of the vague notions they typically communicate to employees. Ultimately, that's what software development is about: converting manager head canon into something the computer can use to produce a product. LLMs so far aren't able to do this any better than humans. They can churn out lots of source code quickly, but they still can't figure out management intent very well. Perhaps that will change. Perhaps not. Time will tell.
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