Re:TIL: You can access a user’s camera with just HTML
by gumby on Tuesday September 06, 2022 @03:05PM
(#32741722)
I agree with what you wrote 99% but draw a different conclusion.
The 1% where I don't agree: most developers aren't engineers. These days companies hire engineers for stuff that is hard and important. But most do not need that.
And my impression is that that is a good thing. There's been a real democratization of development which means there's a lot of software being written. Most applications I see are fundamentally CRUD apps, and while I'm a bit fearful of the security of the banking apps, the massive frameworks are at least designed (implicitly at least) to reduce complexity and steer people towards some "best practices". Any kid today can build something that only a couple of decades ago (or less) really did need serious engineering.
We've followed the same path before. Rich people used to hire chauffeurs who didn't just drive but performed maintenance on the cars. Then people knew how to change tyres, gap their spark plugs etc. Now people know how to turn the key and steer around the road, hopefully not killing too many people in the process. Next, they'll only need to know how to step into the vehicle.
We should be glad software is going that way. It's not like that will reduce employment for engineers.
The 1% where I don't agree: most developers aren't engineers. These days companies hire engineers for stuff that is hard and important. But most do not need that.
And my impression is that that is a good thing. There's been a real democratization of development which means there's a lot of software being written. Most applications I see are fundamentally CRUD apps, and while I'm a bit fearful of the security of the banking apps, the massive frameworks are at least designed (implicitly at least) to reduce complexity and steer people towards some "best practices". Any kid today can build something that only a couple of decades ago (or less) really did need serious engineering.
We've followed the same path before. Rich people used to hire chauffeurs who didn't just drive but performed maintenance on the cars. Then people knew how to change tyres, gap their spark plugs etc. Now people know how to turn the key and steer around the road, hopefully not killing too many people in the process. Next, they'll only need to know how to step into the vehicle.
We should be glad software is going that way. It's not like that will reduce employment for engineers.