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Companies Are Developing More Apps With Fewer Developers (fortune.com) 163

Fortune reports that the "yawning gap in tech skills" has resulted in a surprising shift in supply and demand in the software industry. And in many companies now, a growing trend of developer jobs being given to non-developers can be seen. From the article: That's because a relatively new technology, known as low-code or no-code platforms, is now doing a big chunk of the work that high-priced human talent used to do. Low-code platforms are designed so that people with little or no coding or software engineering background -- known in the business as "citizen developers" -- can create apps, both for use in-house and for clients. Not surprisingly, the low-code platform industry, made up of about 40 small companies (so far), is growing like crazy. A recent Forrester Research report put its total revenues at about $1.7 billion in 2015, a figure that's projected to balloon to $15 billion in the next four years. Low-code-platform providers, notes Forrester, are typically seeing sales increases in excess of 50% a year.The report cites QuickBase, a company whose low-code platforms are used by half of the Fortune 500 companies, as an example. Its CEO Allison Mnookin says that almost any employee can now do most or all of the same work that developers used to do. Mnookin adds that there's a big advantage in this. "Opening an app's development to the non-techies who need the app removes misunderstandings between the IT department and other employees about what the end user needs."

Comment simulation-argument.com has the best summaries (Score 1) 951

If you are really interested in this topic than probably the best place to review the current thinking is: http://www.simulation-argument... .

Personally I don't find it useful to spend much time thinking about it. The idea we are in a simulation is pretty much the same as "everything is a dream." Even if it's true it's untestable with no clear implications for how we relate to the world or make decisions. As William James said, "A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all."

Comment Re:Semantics (Score 1) 837

I thought this was a very interesting claim. If it were true, that would seriously challenge many of the sources I trust on this issue. However, the article you link to does NOT say that global ice mass has remained constant, just that the mass in Antarctic has stayed the same. Meanwhile, several other articles on the exact same NASA website address the question of total global ice mass and state things like "the decreases in Arctic sea ice far exceed the increases in Antarctic sea ice. (http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-study-shows-global-sea-ice-diminishing-despite-antarctic-gains).

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