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There are a massive number of people who want the ends of programming and geekery but lacked the means. They are overjoyed that they can abrogate the means and enjoy the reflected light of achievement, especially if it cheapens the part they feel inferior about: namely, actually understanding and learning about the systems.

As such, to them, it’s a BENEFIT if the systems change at a rate no mortal would ever agree to. Why learn anything, after all?

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To be fair, technology has never been able to completely replace humans at anything unless the job was explicitly designed (factory/assembly) rather than organically discovered.

Writing software is one of those organic roles because it touches so many parts of a business. If you ask 100 devs to explain what they do, you'll get at least 100 distinct answers.

For the "organic" roles we have attempted to replace, we just keep lowering our standards. Doctors and lawyers are a good example of that. Obviously, the doctors and lawyers aren't going anywhere.

What is bound to occur to dev work is the opposite of what the doomers say. We will probably go back to the jack-of-all-trades type of dev. All the specialists/contractors and their certifications become worthless again. If the expected skillset becomes broader, that only further resists automation.

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