Julia Vowler examines the importance of software development and
our ever-increasing dependence on it
California, it seems, is on the brink of running out of
electricity. One contributing factor to the situation is that
Californians now make greater demands on their electricity supply,
running electronic gadgets of every kind. They are draining the
grid dry.
But electricity is not the only fuel which electronic gadgetry
requires. From washing machines and robotic toy dogs to PDAs and
PCs, it is software that fuels the electronic age. As the new
century dawns, the era of the e-economic revolution will be
dominated by a ferocious need for ever more software.
Software, of course, for the time being at least, cannot be
generated by anything other than the human mind. So although
automated software generation will one day make programmers as
redundant as scribes in the age of printing, for the moment, the
brains that produce code are going to be more valuable than
ever.
"During 2001 the importance of software and the spread of its
influence will be greater than at any time in our history," says
David Bell, director of the Management Forum for Excellence in
Software Development. "Software will power more devices and affect
our lives to a greater extent than ever before."
But before the legions of software developers bask in the
radiance of their own global importance, happy in the knowledge
that the future of the third millennium relies so completely on
them, there is a distinct downside to being the most critical
people in the world's economy.
In classical and medieval times, key workers, without whose
industry the economic edifice would collapse, were often slaves or
serfs, bonded to their tasks. Without lapsing to quite such
draconian strictures, software developers, warns Bell, will not be
in for an easy ride.
The keyword will be pressure.
"The demands on the six million or so software developers
worldwide will be greater than ever before - more demanding project
times scales, greater shortages of capable people and a wider range
of technologies to master," he points out.
But if that is the bad news, it certainly is not new news.
Asking software developers to deliver too much, too late, is an
all-too-familiar situation. The bottom line for software developers
is still the same: code faster, we needed the drop yesterday.
"Some challenges are unchanging," observes Bell.
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