I look at how much time (and Friday nights) I sacrificed to get into programming and think life is too short for everyone to be a programmer.

And I don't see why programming has to be the ubiquitous pipedream over any other field, like philosophy. Of course, the main issue is that everyone is different and only a fraction of people are going to have an interest at all in a given niche.

The majority of people can't even do something that is universally uncontroversially good for them like exercise or stay a healthy weight. So I always thought it was funny to think that we'll all sing kumbaya over something that requires effort but with even less global appeal like programming.

Agreed, I think programming as a skill will follow a similar arc to automotive engineering.

Early on it was highly specialized, but from the 50s-80s it was generally expected that you knew how to maintain your car and would do the basic jobs yourself (oil, tires, maybe even filters). But now? A lot of people now would even call out AAA to change a wheel.

Cheap tyre iron included with your vehicle vs nuts over-tightened with commercial pneumatic wrench ... it's not that unlikely that the tyre-iron breaks. If it doesn't you may be unable to loosen the nuts. It's pretty reasonable to call out a mechanic.

If you're doing anything complicated you have to wrangle the vehicle computer.

I expect you're right, computers will get more complex, more proprietary, less open, less likely to use open standards, companies will do more to prevent users adapting or repairing them.

I don't want it to change by much. Yes we need more programmers, but we also need more doctors. It is not practical to become a great doctor and a great programmer.

Those are but two of that millions of different jobs that are required for modern society to function.

> It is not practical to become a great doctor and a great programmer. > Those are but two of that millions of different jobs that are required for modern society to function.

Who said anything about being a great programmer? We have great writers, and believe me I'm not one, it doesn't stop all of us from gaining quite a bit from writing.

I'm not a native English speaker, I talk french. I'm far from great in linguistic, I'm not even great in English (my accent is atrocious and I require quite a bit of pause when I speak). Yet here we are and we both profit from me using that skill with you.

My sister has a criminology degree and one of her required class was SQL. She isn't a great programmer, yet she was able to use that skill to do more.

Personally I'm pretty sure programming should/will become a basic skill everyone will have. It doesn't means everyone will be great at it, it doesn't means it will fill every needs, but I believe almost everyone can gain from it. How many time have we used algebra in our daily life, I can count it without any hands for pretty nearly everyone ;) yet we all learn it. There so many time though that I saw people do repetitive tasks, that could be automated so easily on a computer, yet we don't learn that at school.

Not everyone will become full time programmer, but almost everyone can profit from that skill.

I think the vast majority of people isn't even aware that programming is a thing. Back when computers used to present people with a BASIC prompt, people had a better chance of finding out about it and getting into it.

These days more people know about it in general because of the high salaries programmers earn. So in time I can see it becoming somewhat similar to wanting to be an engineer, doctor, or lawyer. Except those fields may more accessible even in the future.