In software, the vast majority of work has asymptotically been automated. So we forget that it was ever work.
Consider the humble file copy. Or “automated scribe” if you will.
Copying is automated to the point where the enormous amount of copying our systems do has becomes invisible to us - and also lost as a point of economic differentiation.
And it’s meta useful! All our copying programs are themselves easily copied - with the same algorithms!
The point is that software writing, like mathematics, will always spend its time futzing around the edge of the known and unknown, because every area that gets fully known/characterized will get automated in a way that both solves that problem for everyone and scorches the economic earth of that activity.
Software work will always include an element of quest (research) into the unknown, in search of riches (economic value), in some aspect, whether that new area is glorious or tragically mundane.
Whatever area of software work a manager without software expertise can do themselves automagically, is like a fruit tree tamed so that it is easy to pluck fruit from, because it no longer has fruit.
The manager would no longer be doing anything differentiated or valuable if their problem statement wasn’t upgraded back into difficult to automate territory requiring pesky creativity and expertise.
Consider the humble file copy. Or “automated scribe” if you will.
Copying is automated to the point where the enormous amount of copying our systems do has becomes invisible to us - and also lost as a point of economic differentiation.
And it’s meta useful! All our copying programs are themselves easily copied - with the same algorithms!
The point is that software writing, like mathematics, will always spend its time futzing around the edge of the known and unknown, because every area that gets fully known/characterized will get automated in a way that both solves that problem for everyone and scorches the economic earth of that activity.
Software work will always include an element of quest (research) into the unknown, in search of riches (economic value), in some aspect, whether that new area is glorious or tragically mundane.
Whatever area of software work a manager without software expertise can do themselves automagically, is like a fruit tree tamed so that it is easy to pluck fruit from, because it no longer has fruit.
The manager would no longer be doing anything differentiated or valuable if their problem statement wasn’t upgraded back into difficult to automate territory requiring pesky creativity and expertise.