the best part is programming has been getting automated since it began. the assumption that since that process of automation hasn't cut into programmers' salaries and job prospects yet that it won't ever, like making software is something special.
(1) increases the value produced per unit of labor input in the field at the low end of quantity, but potentially resulting in reaching the point of rapidly diminishing returns faster.
(2) and, increases the domain in which creating/maintaining automation has value, increasing the value of automation work and pushing out the point where automation work reaches diminishing returns.
Which is why programming (viewed broadly)—itself part of automating any field—keeps being resilient against adverse impacts from automation. Because as long as we are increasing the scope of automation generally, we’re pushing out the diminishing returns point for programming, and automation of programming isn't pulling that point down fast enough to offset that effect. And automation—both of programming and of everything else—keeps pushing up the starting value of programming work. (It also makes it more abstract and about providing input to higher-level automation tools.)
