> With the advent of the assembly line, workers were only required to learn one specific, usually very simple, skill.
I think a lot of the benefits came from automation. An artisan working alone cannot afford the machine tools and jigs to accelerate his work. The assembly line is actually about the centralization of capital and economies of scale, not the deskilling of the workers. In fact, modern First World manufacturing suceeds by firing as many unskilled workers as possible and replacing them with engineers and skilled technicians.
I would say that Java shops value elegant code very highly—in the tools and frameworks and OSes. The front line Java coders are business software's version of sheet metal and rivets.
I think a lot of the benefits came from automation. An artisan working alone cannot afford the machine tools and jigs to accelerate his work. The assembly line is actually about the centralization of capital and economies of scale, not the deskilling of the workers. In fact, modern First World manufacturing suceeds by firing as many unskilled workers as possible and replacing them with engineers and skilled technicians.
I would say that Java shops value elegant code very highly—in the tools and frameworks and OSes. The front line Java coders are business software's version of sheet metal and rivets.