Does anyone truly think we’ll have another generation of nerds hacking away for hours by hand to hone their trade? Or will it turn into a craft like woodworking?
One of the worst parts of software is that you develop this deep expertise in something that has less to show for it to people than a guy dicking around on a guitar or someone who made a stool after 40 hours of experience.
People aren’t decompiling their iPhone apps to admire your handiwork and evaluate how thoughtfully you modeled the domain.
Will artisanal human-driven taxi drivers exist in the future? No, Waymo is even more expensive yet people prefer it. The human aspect turns out to be a liability and less of a human expression people would go out of their way to experience.
I see my sons tinkering with software now in the same way I did. They want to play games and make games and build their own tools. I don't know whether they'll wind up building software as a profession, but I'm sure they'll have the base skills needed to.