My first "job" in computing, where someone else paid me for code, was in a research context where we were modeling radio propagation. Nothing about that was removing human labor. It in face eventually called for a bunch of humans to interact with each other. See: https://www.hamsci.org/basic-project/2017-total-solar-eclips...
I don't think it is fair to claim computers are about putting people out of jobs.
I think it is. Before computers you would have had to write all that down on paper logs. By using code, you saved yourself time. If it wasn't less labor, you wouldn't have done it that way.
The purpose of a system is what it does. If people constantly use your device to turn kittens into pulp, you have built a kitten grinder, even if the label you slapped on the side says "coffee beans only".
- Video games - only feasible because of computers.
- Medical device firmware - hardware control layer for medical devices, which are used to aid in medical procedures.
- Synthesizers - help to make music.
- Detailed universe-scale physics simulations - help to make certain physics problems more tractable.
- Mars rover control software - helps to remote control rovers.
- The Linux kernel - control layer that sits between firmware and actual applications, pretty much just a common shared library so apps don't have to each ship with a full stack.
I don't really see your point here. None of these examples counter the argument that software is created to automate human labour as much as is practical.
Video games are an interesting category since they're entirely enabled by software: I can't imagine anyone driving a video game manually (note I don't consider things like Chess, etc software to be video games in this context; more things like FPS, racing, etc). I do remember as a kid I thought that there were actually little people doing the stuff in video games though.
Whether or not you want to admit that is up to you. If you're selling automation or efficiency gains, you're removing human labor.
My first "job" in computing, where someone else paid me for code, was in a research context where we were modeling radio propagation. Nothing about that was removing human labor. It in face eventually called for a bunch of humans to interact with each other. See: https://www.hamsci.org/basic-project/2017-total-solar-eclips...
I don't think it is fair to claim computers are about putting people out of jobs.
I think it is. Before computers you would have had to write all that down on paper logs. By using code, you saved yourself time. If it wasn't less labor, you wouldn't have done it that way.
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Human labor could do the math by hand
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I'm improving error prone systems to make the world more efficient, not to replace people.
The purpose of a system is what it does. If people constantly use your device to turn kittens into pulp, you have built a kitten grinder, even if the label you slapped on the side says "coffee beans only".
Nonsense. By your logic anything pointy is a killer machine, because people constantly use them to kill.
If that's constantly the thing your device is constantly used for... yes?
Why else would one create software, if not to do something that a human does/did?
A few off the top of my head:
- Video games
- Medical device firmware
- Synthesizers
- Detailed universe-scale physics simulations
- Mars rover control software
- The Linux kernel
- Video games - only feasible because of computers.
- Medical device firmware - hardware control layer for medical devices, which are used to aid in medical procedures.
- Synthesizers - help to make music.
- Detailed universe-scale physics simulations - help to make certain physics problems more tractable.
- Mars rover control software - helps to remote control rovers.
- The Linux kernel - control layer that sits between firmware and actual applications, pretty much just a common shared library so apps don't have to each ship with a full stack.
I don't really see your point here. None of these examples counter the argument that software is created to automate human labour as much as is practical.
Video games are an interesting category since they're entirely enabled by software: I can't imagine anyone driving a video game manually (note I don't consider things like Chess, etc software to be video games in this context; more things like FPS, racing, etc). I do remember as a kid I thought that there were actually little people doing the stuff in video games though.
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This list is funny.
All of these things existed in pre computer form.
A scheduler used to be a person putting punch cards into a machine.
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To do things that a human could have done in theory, but did not do because it would have been too expensive.
To do new things no number of humans can do
No one is taking away programming as a hobby from you :)