                      Death of the ProgaSaurus Hax
                          by James K. Lawless
 
        In issue #1 of CyberNews, Hugh W. ( Chip ) Cox lets us in on his
opinion of the growing rumor that programmers will soon be an extinct
species.
        These rumors are lent credibility by newer development tools which
facilitate rapid development of software. Nowadays, your average Joe can
crank out a quality application in a very short amount of time with a tool
such as Microsoft Visual BASIC.
        If you've tried a tools such as VB, I think you'll find that the
rumors have some credibility. Nontechnical personnel can construct
applications using rapid-development tools. Unfortunately, issues remain
which are not readily obvious which stall the demise of the almighty
programmer.
        Most of the loud voices behind these rumors define "programming" as
the ability to create a software product. In the life-span of any given
program, the program will endure a larger maintenance-cycle than it will a
creation- cycle.  While many contemporary software development facilities
boast a rapid development cycle, I've yet to see statistics on any kind of
maintenance cycle.
        For years, programmers have tried to minimize the amount of work
required to perform a specific programming task. This effort was often
accomplished by designing reusable software components, minimizing the
amount of rework time necessary for new projects.
        I'm not certain of any rapid-development packages which facilitate
creation of reusable components ( Borland International's Delphi may prove
me wrong, however ). Essentially, the packages allow you to glue together
existing software components so that they form some type of an application.
Reusability can be achieved by adhering to carefully defined coding
conventions so that the text-based source code can be hacked up in a
cut-and-paste manner.
        These rapid-development tools are obviously mature enough that they
are being used as development tools on a large scale. We should really focus
on the fact that while they do facilitate quick development, a skilled
software architect should really be behind the wheel of the development
vehicle.
        After the initial excitement of being able to paste together an
application I think that a nontechnical user will quickly realize that they
need more training to effectively use these tools.
        Rapid-development tools seem to focus primarily on business software
development. As Mr. Cox stated, someone will have to continue to write
operating-systems, compilers, and such.
        Who cares if these tools can't write operating-systems or compilers?
When was the last time you had to write one at an insurance company?
Payroll...general ledger...marketing statistics...now you're talking!
Realistically, most applications boil down to inserting data into a database
and analyzing/reporting on this data.
        While I doubt that the programmer will vanish any time soon, I do
believe that the programmer's role in software development will change. The
tools are certainly changing, so it's time for the programmer to adapt.
        My point is simple. Rapid-development tools do have their place in
contemporary programming. Are they going to cause the extinction of the
programmer? I don't think so. I do think that they will cause the existing
class of programmers to metamorphose into a group of individuals who will be
unencumbered by trivialities of programming-language syntax. Future
operating systems will facilitate software constructs that lend themselves
to functions particular to specific programming tasks ( database management,
FAX interaction, electronic-messaging ). Future compilers/development
facilities will have to provide a means to interface to these powerful
operating systems. This interface should allow for all of the time-saving
practices we learned as software engineers ( component reuse, group
development, ...etc. )
        Is this transition going to happen quickly? Probably not. While the
current set of tools does prove promising, most are lacking in features that
make them desirable development environments.
        The change, however, is on the horizon. It WILL happen. If you're a
programmer, I really don't think that you have anything to fear. All of your
experience is still needed, the medium has simply changed.
        Rather than succumbing like the dinosaur, I believe that the
programmer species will evolve with the environment, disparaging the most
current in the history of "impending-doom-for-programmers" rumors.
