Sure, there is a divergence of skill sets...We're going to have "doctor" developers – people who carry an incredible breadth of knowledge and are paid accordingly.
Beside them will be "nurse" developers – people who are just as professional, but less learned in the full range of computer science ideas.
Though the abstract nature of the field often benefits from analogical representations, I think this one detracts. I don't see how our current hodgepodge list of role titles we've already borrowed from other fields (architect, developer, designer, scientist, ops, product manager, evangelist(?!), quality assurance, security specialist, chief information officer (not to mention wizards, code monkeys, Java baristas (aka the bespeckled missionaries (they don't C# for whatever reason) who walk through your neighborhood every once in a while to knock on doors with warm smiles hoping to share their beliefs on the one true Oracle and some bizarre philosophy of enterprise scale spiritual development involving complex and brittle structures and subservience to feudal and [frankly] regressive class structures that most favor a nepotistic inheritance procedure designed to chiefly empower their children and a small circle of similarly interested functionaries that seem hellbent on oppressing the rest of the system), unicorn jockeys, tech debt lawyers, and whatever you call that long-gone contractor who years ago thrust a bizarre moonscript backend into the core of your team's architecture like Excalibur waiting for an Arthur everyone hopes won't happen along because rock that asshole stuck the sword in happened to be the kingdom's cornerstone and even the slightest nudge will cause the whole system to precariously sway ...)) can be summarized with a doctor / nurse dichotomy.
Even if writing, practicing and administering software legally required a degree and license, I think this still detracts. Maybe useful once software powers organic, higher-order life forms, at which point I imagine our doctors and nurses will be entirely software driven anyway[0].
Whatever the "doctor" developers write to abstract away the nurses, it's still not going to be able to communicate with nontechnical managers. Or at least, once it can do that, the "doctor" developers will be obsolete soon anyway.
Comments
Sure, there is a divergence of skill sets...We're going to have "doctor" developers – people who carry an incredible breadth of knowledge and are paid accordingly.
Beside them will be "nurse" developers – people who are just as professional, but less learned in the full range of computer science ideas.
Though the abstract nature of the field often benefits from analogical representations, I think this one detracts. I don't see how our current hodgepodge list of role titles we've already borrowed from other fields (architect, developer, designer, scientist, ops, product manager, evangelist(?!), quality assurance, security specialist, chief information officer (not to mention wizards, code monkeys, Java baristas (aka the bespeckled missionaries (they don't C# for whatever reason) who walk through your neighborhood every once in a while to knock on doors with warm smiles hoping to share their beliefs on the one true Oracle and some bizarre philosophy of enterprise scale spiritual development involving complex and brittle structures and subservience to feudal and [frankly] regressive class structures that most favor a nepotistic inheritance procedure designed to chiefly empower their children and a small circle of similarly interested functionaries that seem hellbent on oppressing the rest of the system), unicorn jockeys, tech debt lawyers, and whatever you call that long-gone contractor who years ago thrust a bizarre moonscript backend into the core of your team's architecture like Excalibur waiting for an Arthur everyone hopes won't happen along because rock that asshole stuck the sword in happened to be the kingdom's cornerstone and even the slightest nudge will cause the whole system to precariously sway ...)) can be summarized with a doctor / nurse dichotomy.
Even if writing, practicing and administering software legally required a degree and license, I think this still detracts. Maybe useful once software powers organic, higher-order life forms, at which point I imagine our doctors and nurses will be entirely software driven anyway[0].
[0] http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Hologra...
Your reply is dizzying. Glad my commment could help you get some angst out of your system!
Hopefully the sword will be more Excalibur and less Sword of Damocles.
^^ I have no idea what that means, but it seemed relevant. :)
What will the "nurse" developers do such that the "doctor" developers don't just write something to abstract away the nurses?
Everyone knows the doctor developers rarely show up, and the nurse developers end up doing all the work.
Doctor is a long-running process that requires a callback from nurse.
Whatever the "doctor" developers write to abstract away the nurses, it's still not going to be able to communicate with nontechnical managers. Or at least, once it can do that, the "doctor" developers will be obsolete soon anyway.
Until we have AGI that replaces all developers, someone will have to do the work of converting business requirements into LOB apps.