Aesthetics and the Human Factor in Programming (1972)

> ...the present is a time of difficulty for programmers. The volume of work to be done is increasing; wages less so. The romantic aura surrounding this inscrutable occupation is, if it ever really existed, beginning to fade. Software houses are melting like snow in spring. Professionals accustomed to being strongly in demand now find themselves waiting on the books of the employment agencies. Even the claim of programmers to be a special breed of professional employee has come to be disputed. Still more significant, authority over the freewheeling brotherhood of programmers is slipping into the paws of administrators and managers -- who try to make the work of the programmers planned, measurable, uniform, and faceless.

I wonder how this ties up with Naur's classical "Programming as Theory Building"? Also worth mentioning Gang of Four software patterns and their relation to the work and aesthetical thinking of Christopher Alexander (cf. "The Nature of Order").