Article:		The Blacksmith and the Bookkeeper, Part 3
Subject:		Hyper-human or human?
Date:		2004-10-16 17:01:51
From:		gaj
Samson might call such attributes/skills "hyper-human" but for many they are the characteristics of basic humanity. The fact that so many of us programmers concentrate on "sub-human" tasks such as logical thinking (which computers are really good at) shouldn't blind us to what is human. Humans are persons not thinking machines. The British philosopher John Macmurray articulated a whole philosophy on the basis of friendship being the basis of humanity not thought. If the task of churning out boilerplate code could be allocated to machines/automatons/AIs would any programmer shed a tear? I know I've spent a considerable part of my time as a programmer looking for tools/modules/libraries for whatever project I'm working on. Actually writing the code myself has always been my last resort. I've been a programmer since 1970 and have lived through the "Decline and Fall of the Programmer" predictions every couple of years since. Maybe I'm like the blacksmith who can't see the end yet but the funny thing is I like programming so I will keep doing it even if I can't earn a living by it. Maybe that's why blacksmiths disappeared: the work wasn't interesting enough and it was just too dangerous and exhausting. Human reasons rather than economic determinism perhaps?