Exactly, and it's already happening. The day of the IT specialist is rapidly drawing to a close.
Coding is not for everyone. It takes a certain type of tenacity and patience. Not everyone is going to be cut out for that.
Me, for example. One class in Java was enough to convince me I’d never want to do this for a living.
Ohhhhh....I left the semi-colon out on line 476....THAT’S why it won’t compile! Could not see that being my daily routine.
That's a good point: as tools become more effective and easier to use, more and more people will be able to use existing programs to do their jobs. Look at how Excel has replaced a lot of "data processing" systems.
There are still systems that require an engineer's mindset to design, implement, test, and maintain. But, most professionals are able to cobble together much of what they need, with a minimal amount of coding.
But as the article notes: the procedural skills you have to learn to write code are also usable elsewhere. Programmers know how to integrate different components together to accomplish the requirement, without starting from scratch. But, you do the same thing solving any problem -- from when you first pick up the right tool.
Or just shrinking. You’ll always need specialists but they will be working for consulting firms that come in fix something and leave.