Software development as a growing profession - Past

Software development is a growing profession. In three blog posts I’ll take a glance at the past, present and future of software development. This post is on software development from past to present.

Humans have made devices that can compute complex calculations from input, as far back as 100 BC, like the Antikythera mechanism. The next step, programming, has been possible since at least the 9th century. The first programmable devices that we know of were programmable musical instruments. The first programs were thus rhythms and melodies.

Centuries later Ada Lovelace appeared. She theoretically programmed an algorithm in 1843. She even wrote proofs that it would work. The software was to be executed by a Charles Babbage Analytical Engine, a mechanical computer. The engine ended up not being build, only sets of plans exist. This, sadly, prevented the growth of the profession of steam(punk) developers. 

The principle of modern computers was proposed by Alan Turing in 1936. Nine years later he published a specification for a modern computer. Finally in 1948 the first modern electronic programmable computer ran its first program. 

The modern computer has been in use ever since, to run (and later create) a multitude of digital tools. The tool set being mostly limited by our imagination. To contrast, in the 9th century you could program a flute to play a song, but could it tally the grain for the grain store? 

 

A tool in the physical world is generally also a tangible object, a piece of hardware (like a hammer from the hardware store). Digital tools, however, need hardware to be used. Thus in 1953 “software” was first used, as a contrasting term to hardware. From that point on (computer) hardware and software became tied as terms in computing. Still, a software application is also a program, a set of structured activities (executed on hardware). 

The term software finally made it possible to make a distinction between programmers of musical boxes and programmers of software, software developers. Akin to mechanical engineers being the architects of the industrial revolution, software developers/engineers are the architects of the digital revolution. 

The growth of software development as a profession has been equally revolutionary. In the 1940’s software developers first came to be and immediately proved their usefulness during WWII. Luckily software developers are not only handy to have around in wartime. The profession has been growing steadily ever since. The growth of the number of software developers is estimated to be 20% each year. In 2019 there were an estimated 13 million professional software developers in the world.

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