human factors bust automation goals
Because I've seen the really crummy stuff novices create with 4GL tools. Its generally unusable stuff. What I am annoyed about is management classifying software development at about the same level of difficulty as typing. We are viewed as unskilled labor exportable overseas to cheaper parts of the world. Line workers.
Agreed. It is relatively *easy* to get something running from scratch using Access or what-not. However, amatures have almost ZILCH understanding/skills of long-term *maintainability*. However, kudos for maintainability skill are generally rare in comming. That is the big contradiction of the industry IMO. Bosses don't know what is good for them, jugding things on superficial sh8t instead.
Yes, newbies and end users *can* create applications with drag-n-drool tools, but eventually they will make a mess. It is like gunk build-up in arteries or bad oil in your car. It may not kill the machine today, but it will in the end. A lot of programming expenditure today is cleaning up, navigating, or patching messes made by idiots. I would go as far to say that messes made by idiots is *the* most expensive part of custom software.
So as long as there are idiots, there will be jobs for people to deal with or clean up the messes. However, such work is usually not very pleasent IMO. It is similar in feeling to spending time to untangle your toddler's yoyo.
Another factor keeping the profession alive is "ego-based tinkering". Managers love to customize stuff. It makes them feel important. Generic tools could be made to handle roughly say 90% of what they want, but its the last 10% that turns them to more skilled people.
Finally, many business rules are too complex and capricous to automate with drag-n-drool end-user tools. I liken it to building an AI system that tries to model the current head honcho's head. I think GUI's and add/change/delete forms could be greatly simplified, especially for web apps, but the nitty business rules behind a lot of that are not generic enough to package and share. IOW, many biz rules are not rational enough to apply rational abstraction to.
Thus, there are 3 factors that keep the profession alive:
1. Newbies/amatures tend to make messes that accumulate over time.
2. Fine-tuned customization makes managers feel important.
3. Biz rules are too tied to whims and flakiness of big-wig personalities rather than reflecting factorable true-isms about the universe.
What I see as a bigger threat to programming is cheap foreign labor (both abroad and visas). Even if it does not directly replace your job, it will toss a lot of developers into the job pool, bumping other citizens your way and diluting citizen earning power and market demand.
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