Of course carpenters don't get this kind of nonsense, because you can buy cheap, mass-manufactured tables. If you go to a carpenter to get a table built, you must have a good reason and you know that a lot of time and money will be involved.
Make no mistake, this distinction is coming to much of what we currently consider "programming" too. Spreadsheets probably save the world from 80% of what would otherwise have to be done by a programmer, and someone will eventually find a UI paradigm for a rough database and rules system (maybe something like Bento+Improv?) that can replace much of what line-of-business programmers do now.
Now, you say: but programming is really about thinking and attention to detail, not just typing in code.
To which I say: yeah, and so is making tables.
But at some point, in the current Western economy, cheap wins over good.
Excellent points. And I'd have to agree that both mass market tables (Ikea?) and spreadsheets do save us all a lot of these aches.
But cheap only wins if you can sell many of the same manufactured good. Most of the people who go to carpenters and programmers think what they want is unique enough to require a crafter, but expect the crafter to be as quick and cheap as a mass-market product manufacturer.
Make no mistake, this distinction is coming to much of what we currently consider "programming" too. Spreadsheets probably save the world from 80% of what would otherwise have to be done by a programmer, and someone will eventually find a UI paradigm for a rough database and rules system (maybe something like Bento+Improv?) that can replace much of what line-of-business programmers do now.
Now, you say: but programming is really about thinking and attention to detail, not just typing in code.
To which I say: yeah, and so is making tables.
But at some point, in the current Western economy, cheap wins over good.