Thomas Tunstall's belief that software jobs are "only beginning to emerge" may prove dangerously wrong ("Where the New Jobs Will Come From," op-ed, Nov. 5). As a software product manager for over 20 years, I've seen our field boom. I now see the rapid emergence of technical tools that may automate many of the tasks done by programmers today, or ones that will move software workers down the food chain. To build a great looking website 10 years ago, you needed an HTML designer and coder. Today Wix, Squarespace and other tools make this an easy task for any computer-literate person anywhere. Much more powerfully—programming tool sets, libraries, cloud services, development systems, plug-ins replacing programs and as yet unimaginable AI programming interfaces may replace a vast army of software developers.
The teams making these new tools will succeed fabulously. And those who can see ways to construct ever more powerful applications using these tools also will succeed. A lot of others may be looking to teach those Zumba classes Mr. Tunstall mentions.
Larry Taymor
San Rafael, Calif.
Mr. Tunstall is correct. The pleas to "save the family farm" while farm employment fell from 70% to 2% of the workforce were as misguided as similar concerns about manufacturing employment are today. But the real reason not to ever worry about employment is that, metaphysically, there is an unlimited amount of work to do. No cave man was ever "unemployed."
Barry Milliken
New York
Source: You Software Majors Should Minor in Zumba
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