Will Programming Go Away?

As computer technology got more powerful in the 1980s and early 1990s, people began predicting the demise of programmers. As those predictions age, the demand for programmers keeps growing. The need for programming seems to be increasing at a rapid pace.

Tools Go Out of Style, Programming Does Not

In the mid-1970s, the management information system (MIS) was going to be the answer to all computing needs. Each company would have an MIS in place, and all data needed by the company would be at each computer user's fingertips. Such data-filtering was to be so vast and efficient that ordinary and more specific programs would not be needed. The promise of MIS was not only overpredicted but never materialized.

In the late 1980s, ...

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