The End of the Web Developer

The so-called 'longstanding' position in web design/development today is that development, that is coding, CSS coders, PHP coders etc., as well as actual web designers will always be a necessity on a human scale.

What this current 'web snobbery' ignores, is the pattern in the history of technology, toward progressively increasing patterns of automation.

But you don't have to look at a history book to see it happening right in front of you.

You used to need HTML to build tables, and every single table that needed a different style, i.e. a different color or background, needed a new line or set of lines of HTML. Then came CSS to automate HTML styling into infinitely representative 'sets' and 'classes,' cutting the work load at least, in half. You used to need straight code in general to do anything in the way of putting up a website, then there came DreamWeaver to automate half the code you were working with. After this, came the advent of CMSs like Drupal and Joomla that automate most of the PHP, CMS 'modules' to automate animation and behavior based actions. (And keep in mind, these are just a few instances of how tech has been automating hand written code, of countless examples over even the last five years.)

To digress: While it remains true that you still need coders to do 'serious' work, that even Drupal modules need to be hacked and reworked to death, half of them, to even function--still, the pro-development position of "well, in SOME way, you will always need the coder or the designer," --ignores the nature of the current paradigm.

And the current paradigm governing the nature of software development in relation to the consumer outlines an on-going trend of destabilizing human work. In terms of software development, on the face of it, has meant an increase in the number of developers. But this has been true only because there has been a corresponding increase in the demand for new software, while proportionally there has been an overarching shrinking in the size of actual development. That is to say, software saturates itself and floods just like every other market.

True, Drupal modules need reworking, true DW never really was a great GUI, but do you really think they will always be the same? Drupal will get better and better, DW especially now being owned by Adobe will probably become one of the world's first 'website GUI based builders' for the consumer.

Consider a synopsis of what I'm saying:

1) While on one hand, as software automates every next step of human labor, so too the scale of functionality, as well as the breadth of our standards and needs, widens.

2) True, while it widens, this doesn't discount the fact that the paradigm of software since the 70's or even 50's has been: increasing automation and decreasing human labor, in every field of work, and this leaves web development as no exception.

i.e. Before the question was: "How can I put up a website?" "Who am I going to get to do it?" Then it was: "I know I can put up a website myself, but I want it look top notch, so who can I get to do it?" Now it's: "How can I undercut the web firm with a professional looking, but cheaper site?" or "How can get a more custom built site?"

Seeing a pattern here?

Whatever software automates, the next logical step of what's left over, becomes human based: i.e. 'How can I even put up a website?' becomes: 'I know I can generate one myself, how can I customize it?'

And that's the argument from the web snobbery community now: The notion that the machine's automating capacity will stop at at the implicit 'wall' of customization, but this is wishful thinking of people who want desperately to hold onto their jobs.

The next step?

"What interface program, of billions will I get to BUILD my own site?"

10 or even 5 years from now, sites won't be sold as packages through web firms, but as components, pre-designed, prepackaged buttons to press to select everything down to not only what color, but what shade, what tone, what type of gradient, of millions, what type of borders, of millions, what font, of any font, what music, what layout, anything...

The new wave GUI automated web builders made for you to select endless design components for your website, being a matter of selecting options from drop down menus, with standardized coding, every option, universally compatible with the emergence of standardized web platforms.

The current developers might say: "Maybe, but you will STILL need designers to design SOMETHING, in SOME way?"

Really? Will you?

I admit, the end of the web designer/developer may seem a bit rash or too extreme. But is it really a web designer who designs the look and feel of mere components to be sold on a market of billions of other components? Is it really a web developer when we reach the point where AI can write its own code?

Is it not more likely that the web development craze is startling similar to the snobbery of automotive fanatics who now can only hold their Ford or their muscle cars in reverent nostalgia, the great car heyday, extant only in memory...Or the auto mechanic now out of work cause the car resembles a computer more than it does an automobile..(?)

The future of web design is the end of the designer. The future of web development is AI, not the web developer.