Another factor is our tools are becoming more complex than necessary. I do a lot of "internal CRUD" programming, and the GUI IDE's of the latter half of the 90's took far less key-and-mouse-strokes to use, had more UI options, and used screen real-estate better. (They were clunky at first, but got better with time.) One could spend more time on analysis; you didn't need an army of coders.
The Web bleeped that up. Everyone hoped HTML5 would fill in the CRUD gaps, but it didn't. Thus, we still waste lots of time because the Web was not designed for CRUD and shoehorning CRUD into it is like backing an 18-wheeler truck into a parking slot. In the old days you just pointed your sadan steering wheel into the parking slot and DONE. JavaScript-centric UI's have proven too fragile. It's great for eye-candy, but not reliability.
Yes, I know there are some good Web stacks out there that can mostly overcome this, but they are rare and/or hard for managers to recognize. Their urge is to "keep up with the Joneses" even if the Joneses are doing something that doesn't help typical CRUD. Nobody can tell fads from good stuff.
One good invention and/or new standard could wipe out half of CRUD coders. I propose the industry experiment with a standard GUI Markup Language designed to do desktop-ish things out of the box and be more stateful. Mobile-friendly UI's are nice for mobile devices, but not good for regular office productivity. Desktops and mice still rule work.
The Web bleeped that up. Everyone hoped HTML5 would fill in the CRUD gaps, but it didn't. Thus, we still waste lots of time because the Web was not designed for CRUD and shoehorning CRUD into it is like backing an 18-wheeler truck into a parking slot. In the old days you just pointed your sadan steering wheel into the parking slot and DONE. JavaScript-centric UI's have proven too fragile. It's great for eye-candy, but not reliability.
Yes, I know there are some good Web stacks out there that can mostly overcome this, but they are rare and/or hard for managers to recognize. Their urge is to "keep up with the Joneses" even if the Joneses are doing something that doesn't help typical CRUD. Nobody can tell fads from good stuff.
One good invention and/or new standard could wipe out half of CRUD coders. I propose the industry experiment with a standard GUI Markup Language designed to do desktop-ish things out of the box and be more stateful. Mobile-friendly UI's are nice for mobile devices, but not good for regular office productivity. Desktops and mice still rule work.