Still to this day I appreciate the programs I wrote and used at work.
I was accomplishing things nobody else was in the day, because my programs were very very helpful.
In Southern California there was nobody doing what I was in my line of work. Folks were asking how I was doing that. LOL
Yes, it was a real pleasure to watch my programs crunch.
I use spread sheets a lot today.
One of the most enjoyable things I ever programmed was an Excel spreadsheet that would take a date a file and re-organize it it.
By hand it would take about 30-45 minutes to do. I wrote a Macro to handle the whole process once per month. It would accomplish the task in about thirty seconds.
Watching the Macro crunch and reformat the information on the screen was one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever created and then watched.
I’d run the program a number of times just to enjoy it again.
LOL
You know, once you get to a certain level of proficiency in Excel or other programming, it’s hard to instruct someone else to do the same thing. But there’s a good reason for that.
This is one of the advantages of your average American new collar worker. Familiarity with the machines you work with leads to great productivity: you are bridging your own knowledge of the particular business with the machine.
The danger is that a big software company comes along and automates processes, but doesn’t fully grasp all the business. And in that case you are dumbing down the business to shave headcount.
That’s when big failures occurs as it did with Lehmann Brothers.