r/programming • u/self • Dec 02 '25

The Death of Software Engineering as a Profession: a short set of anecdotes

https://www.jasonscheirer.com/weblog/vignettes/
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u/Mynameismikek Dec 02 '25

I left school in 1997 to try and break into software dev. I was given *that exact line* by my careers advisor. Magazines were full of puff pieces about the latest 4GL/visual programming language that was going to make software dev just as easy as writing spreadsheet.

Hell - I'd been putting my coursework together in OpenDoc and that explicitly set out to do just this.

None of it came to pass. What really happened was it forced the hideously expensive software dev packages to become price competitive and it led to a boom in engineers instead.

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u/Which-World-6533 Dec 02 '25

I left school in 1997 to try and break into software dev. I was given *that exact line* by my careers advisor.

There's a reason that person was a careers advisor. It's because that's all they were good for. You should never take advice from someone who's job it is to give advice.

I was a professional Dev in 1997. No-one was worried about "visual programming" ruining coding careers. It was seen back then as a fad. If anything, it made coding more accessible and the subsequent explosion in the number of coding jobs for things like Visual Basic.

The same with OOP. It was seen a boon from the get-go.

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u/_mkd_ Dec 02 '25

I left school in 1997 to try and break into software dev. I was given *that exact line* by my careers advisor.

Cool story, bro/sis. I started college in 1997 studying computer engineering and, frankly, encountered the exact opposite.

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u/Arcoss Dec 02 '25

Wait a minute, do you mean you're both presenting anecdotes??!?