Ask any software developer and they will tell you that software’s goal is the automation of human processes. Skilled developers will passionately show you – sometimes in more detail than you want – all of their great tools that save them time by performing this or that shortcut, or that insert code snippets, or that remember API references, or that introspect existing code, … the list goes on and on. Almost all developers write software in a language that compiles code from a higher level abstracted concept like Java, C#, Objective-C, etc. into something the machine can understand – machine code. (I know many scripting languages exist, but these languages run even more abstracted from the machine code, so lets set detailed explorations aside for a later deep dive.)

Entire camps of developers wage “religious battles” of words (mostly), over which computer language or development platform provides superior productivity. It is almost universally accepted that these tools will continue to evolve and yield higher productivity into the foreseeable future.

Given the above, why is it that the majority of developers fight the idea of an order-of-magnitude increase in software automation?

We all agree that software’s goal is automating human processes. Creating software is a human process. We are all familiar with expanding automation in our daily development activities. We regularly see order-of-magnitude jumps in other technology. Is it really such a great leap to imagine an order-of-magnitude jump in software development productivity?

It is inevitable that we will have this jump. All of us should aggressively demand, explore and search out this capability.

So, what is holding us back? The key factors are (1) fear and human nature, (2) complexity and the wrong approaches, (3) cheap labor over creativity, and (4) market factors on the leading edge.

I am excited to see the core building blocks emerging that will drive this next technology curve. The eventual fusing of several current technologies will drive the jump.

In future postings, we will explore these topics more deeply.