HW9: Reflections

Programming will continue to be the hot career choice that we will hear about on the news. It will continue to be both extremely competitive and highly sought after. Hopefully more companies will realize that they cannot simple rely on just developers and project managers to develop their systems efficiently. True software engineers will be needed to manage the developers, project managers and even the client. They will make sure what they are creating is held up to the highest standards. The risk will continue to increase as more crucial systems will be put under the watchful eye of a piece of software. The software engineering process will be needed to ensure safety because a failure could cause the loss of life.
In 9 predictions for the future of programming, the author says projecting where technology and processes will be in even 5 years is more like guesswork. I agree with this. Growing up in the 90’s before internet access was widely available to today where you see people with their eyes glued to a slim ‘phone’ where they can essentially do all the same things with it as a full PC shows how far tech has come. This has triggered other devices that function fine without an internet connection to be linked to the internet. The user can now control their thermostat from their phone, see who is at their front door, etc.
The push in the general public is for there to be more programming taught in schools. Just like learning another language, it is easier to learn at a younger age. Progression in new ways of thinking will develop quicker and more rapidly.
There is also a naïve assumption that everyone should learn to program. Not everyone needs to learn how to program, nor can everyone do it efficiently. A doctor doesn’t need to waste their time learning to make a new function within their EMR software when a skilled professional or company can do it much faster and at lower cost. Time is money to most working professionals. The may not know best practices and will not have time to check for new errors cause by the modification.
We already see today how much smart phones have taken over people’s lives. This is evident walking down the street. You’ll see many people using their phones but few using them for making a phone call. People are using them to text each other, update social media and surf the internet. So I agree that smartphones will gain so much more functionality that being used as a phone will be a secondary function. The prospects are boundless with what they can be used for and what can be developed to use the phone as hardware.

Bigger databases are already being created and will only get bigger. The monitoring of users will grow and this is where a system engineer needs to ensure what they are developing lives up to professional standards. Scripts will also be heavily implemented through transcoding robots. Simplifying the workflow of engineers. Simplified script languages will come along with it.