> I've been hearing this about new technologies also since the 90s - going to make programmers obsolete/need less programmers. What ends up happening is what's required expands. I'm sure there's some quippy law here.

We used to have manual QA now most of the testing is done via automation, there used to sys admins handling all the servers now its all cloud which can be handled by programmers/dev ops people.

Maybe in the future we will have code as a service where most of the code is written automatically while few programmers oversee it.

>” What ends up happening is what's required expands.”

I’ve found that abstraction doesn’t scale with Business Logic. Abstraction is good, absolutely, but the sheer number of strange edge cases, special processing rules, and “the client refuses to change their process whatsoever” only seems to increase.

I sense this is why programs keep growing in scope despite all the wonderful Dev-tools, abstractions, and platforms we now have.

Depends on the business. Bespoke logic maybe, but rules based logic such as tax considerations can be abstracted away by APIs etc. Look at the difference in LOE of starting an ecommerce business in 1999 vs 2022 for example.

Also when you consider something like Docusign, you can have a pretty much feature complete product that requires little labor to maintain. You can always expand the scope of any product, but we started from 0 with web based/app software just a decade or two ago. Much of the common and widely useful programs will be largely perfected and require less active development as the years go by.

Same thing with github. You can continue to add features, but the core value of the product is already written and in a serverless world, with appropriate automation, can be maintained by a small team.

I really don't understand how somebody can think labor needs in software will never contract... the main point of debate should be on what a realistic timeline is.