Programmers think that their jobs will always exist.. I think we've got another 20-25 years before the bulk of programming jobs have vaporised in the face of AI.

Sure, Smalltalk is a great language to know.. if only to understand some of CS history. But it is a horrendous technology to use today, or for the past 10 years. I speak from experience. I've worked with Java and Smalltalk as a professional, and the Smalltalk experience pales into insignificance. The tools just haven't kept up with the crazy pace of technological evolution. The Smalltalk "IDE" I had to use professionally was Cincom's. I couldn't believe how primitive, clunky and programmer-hostile that system was (if you've ever spent a few years with any Java IDE). Since working professionally with Smalltalk, I've also kept an eye on the marketplace for the skill.. in Belgium (which is a small sample, I agree), the demand is very, very close to non-existent. I only know of two companies that still cling on to it, against all rational arguments.

Primitive huts? We're drowning in complexity. We've been doing so since the 70s. When is the last time you looked at a project with less than 100K-1M lines of code? We're not building primitive huts, we're building software skyscrapers, nuclear subs and rockets .. that fail all the time.

The big difference between the everyday examples you quote, and contributing to software systems, is what I call the invisibility of the software. No bystanders can instantly judge you to be criminally incompetent when you write code that is so buggy, so fragile and so unsuited to control any aspect of society. Whereas any bystanders witnessing your example actors (shelf stocker, bicycle shop seller, etc..) can instantly judge your example actions as being immoral. That is why we constantly get away with murder: our core artifact is totally incomprehensible to virtually everyone around us. This incomprehensibility even starts within our software teams: we write stuff that even our team members can't understand, let alone our managers, our project leaders, our bosses, our clients. I'm afraid your comparison therefore ignores this fundamental difference. Software realities mean 99.99% of developers act as lone cowboys.. without any pressure to act in any way in a professional manner (professional as defined by the dictionary, not as defined by our industry).

We just need laws that make it a criminal offence to write code, design systems, analyse requirements, write documentation, like nothing matters. Screw readability, screw the bugs (and the risks of bugs), screw maintainability, screw completeness, screw robustness.. just screw it. We "just" need laws that make that attitude a criminal offence. We currently build software the way third world building contractors throw together building materials and call it a building.. only for the building to collapse and kill and cripple people some years later. I've been in IT for 30 years, and am deeply ashamed of how "things are done" .. in the name of the "state of the art".

I also saw Robert Martin's talk, and generally agreed with it. I am generally surprised (and disappointed) at how insensitive and irresponsible colleagues are. At the end of the day, most just want their salaries in their bank accounts, and keep their jobs. Software engineers appear to be just like everyone else. So I agree with Martin that laws are badly needed.. to root out the cowboy/hacker attitude for this coming century. On the subject of Martin's talk, I actually bought his book "Clean Code" as a result of seeing his talk. Robert should be ashamed of his book though.. if it's to be an example of the self-regulating quality consciousness he's talking about, the book is the opposite (it lacks writing discipline, among many other qualities).

The US federal debt is going to ensure that this never happens. Not this side of 2050. Not even if the Chinese start making concrete plans to do the same.

"Largely powerless to resist"... what a load of trash. Just let them try, and see what kind of "powerless resistance" comes back at them. These are fascist laws.. and here in Europe, we've learned a lesson or two on that subject which makes us less inclined to raise our right arm to the furher again.