I disagree with this completely. Development is not line work, and doing it like line work creates unmaintainable, expensive crap. "The Mythical Man-Month" explains this well. Conceptual coherence is of the utmost importance in effective software systems, and you don't get that by just knocking out stories one-by-one like they're desktop support tickets.
Updating strings in database/code is line work. Update images on website is line work. Debugging basic issues is line work. I've gotten these tasks as discreet Jira issues, so someone thought it was important enough.
It's fine if line work + hardcore CS positions exist simultaneously. This fighting over the boundaries of where the profession starts and ends is tiring and we should just accept there's a stratification of developer skill levels and start adjusting our attitudes and training accordingly. Development is all of these things because development is a huge job market.
You can't abstract your way out of doing the line work and only have hardcore CS positions in the job market.
> Development is not line work, and doing it like line work creates unmaintainable, expensive crap.
Huh, it is already happening. I see everyday so many web services are created via auto generating scaffolding tools like Spring boot etc. One just fill in environment details, bits of JSON parsing and service is ready to be deployed.
Good for you that where you work people are intelligent enough to read Fred Brooks. Most places, including the ones with fancy gleaming buildings, open office floors, lounges with couches and organic smoothie bars are just making CRUD services with some cloud backed data storage. More so terminology I see at work is more inspired by factory floor not some intellectual venture.
People like us who spend their free time on a message board about programming know it's best not done as line work. But the general population doesn't, and probably many developers don't.
There is constant, never-ending pressure to turn it into line work and we need to be aware of it. A lot of software running (barely) in the real world is written this way.
While I agree with you, it's also true that the majority of software in the world is held together with bubble gum and duck tape. That doesn't mean it should not have been written - it solved some problem for someone.
We should not build complex systems that way, but plenty of systems are not very complex.
