yes baby, developers have a bright future (Weekly Newsletter, April 25)

“Whenever you don’t know what to do… Go back to the fundamentals.” - Anonymous

Software development is not manufacturing, but a service.

More on that later, but first…

I asked ChatGPT to come up with the total number of industries a software developer could work in.

It answered about 30.

Yes, 30 freaking different sectors of the economy.

From aerospace, to farming, and electric cars.

It turns out space simulation tools, soil monitoring and car displays all have one thing in common: they can (and will be) written in JavaScript.

Putting that together, is about at least 20% of GDP that developers directly impact.

(the math: most advanced economies, like the US, are about 70% services, and JS devs would impact about 30% of that)

Ohh, but most companies don’t need software, right? Like bakeries, or insurance agencies, or farmers. They don't need any apps.

Well, if you are not building (or integrating) some kind of software…

Then what are you going to do?

You write things on paper? You send handwritten memos?

Remember Henry Ford…

“Man minus the machine is a slave.”

(let’s say humans without the machine cause’ is 2025)

“The machine” these days is some kind of software.

An app where a lot of business operations and routines, particularly the repetitive ones, have been programmed.

Take out software and humans will be slaves.

Slaves to tasks they don’t like to do, but they have to.

Not only that, but as mentioned before, software is mostly integrated in the service sector. By their nature, services are incredibly hard to automate.

They are complex. They involve people. And the hundreds of interactions between them.

Meaning…

If you quit planning your developer career because Sam Altman says he will automate your developer job...

You are making a BIG mistake!

Sadly, Altman doesn’t care too much about the objective truth…

Or your mental health.

He only cares about Open AI raising the next VC round after loosing about $5 billion per month.

But, his “thinking machine” is a very fancy token predictor.

It cannot think.

It can write code. But it cannot program.

Meanwhile, despite the though times, the economy is growing.

That growth needs software. And that software needs people to create it, maintain it and extend it.

English is not a programming language.

If it was, then we would not need any lawyers.

“Vibe-coding”, prompt engineering, model context protocol and all the shiny gimmicks AI CEOs are pulling out are just smoke and fireworks.

The world needs good software.

Reliable, clean and bug free. Which as of today, and probably decades to come, will be built by humans.

Just like this email.

100% written by your one and only, Dragos.

With that being said, boys and girls, Bogdan and I are back in action and since next week I am going to seriously open my calendar to take more calls.

Check out how we could work together here.

We might be able to help ya 😊

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Happy Friday!

Dragos

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P.S. If you folks are wondering what I have been doing these days, the answer is… Nothing. Yeah, that’s right. I packed my stuff and went on a long road trip with my girlfriend. My MacBook stayed at home and in most of the areas we visited I had no internet connection. Best time in a while if you ask me. No emails. No social media feeds. Just peace. No screen can beat the beauty of nature. I recommend you all to do that from time to time!

P.S. By the way, writing these emails gives me so much clarity of thought that you should expect a lot more coming your way!