You can look for accountability. You probably won’t find it. But I’m also not saying there isn’t value in humans.

I am saying that we all have worked on projects where “artisanal software development” bore as much resemblance to our process as an abstract art painting does to reality. We’ve all worked with plenty of coworkers (and maybe have even been that coworker ourselves) who just punches the clock. We’ve all worked with developers who have had 1 year of experience for 30 years in a row. Everyone knows the average piece of software being produced is a buggy mess and it’s amazing it all works at all. Hell our industry coined the phrase “worse is better” and “move fast and break things”. To turn around now and pretend that we’re actually all master craftsmen, regularly constructing artifices of pure beauty and logic that will stand the tests of time is a bit silly.

Sure I would take a real human over a YOLO coded piece of software any day. But I’d also take a real application over an excel macro monstrosity any day too. That doesn’t mean excel macros don’t have their place or that they aren’t used to produce things of real value.