It is an interesting discussion. And we have a few things to look at here.
1. The theoretical computer science - This is an evolving science which means as time goes on we will find new and better ways to solve problems, which means improved algorithms for searching and sorting for instance.
2. Larger communities / larger libraries - Because a lot of work has been done by other people we can just build on their work and use the algorithms they have already created and even coded. And these libraries will be updated with time allowing us automatic access to more efficient programs/algorithms.
3. Development - Now here we have a problem I think. A lot of programmers are not computer scientists so they write code to solve business problems not technical / theoretical problems and would be as happy using a bubble sort as a quick sort for instance. And here the speed of hardware is allowing bad programmers to get away with using bad algorithms and bad coding practices. 693
Memory, CPU speed, storage space these things are no longer major concerns and every few months things are getting larger, faster and cheaper. I mean look at the new Cellphones. They are now more advanced than the mainframe computers / servers from the 1970's / 80's . More storage, more processing power, faster memory.
4. UI & DATA - User Interface/ User Experience and DATA are now considered more important than super efficient code in most areas of development. So speed only becomes and issue when a user has to wait long. If we give the user a good look and feel and he gets good response from the application he is happy. And if business knows all data is stored safely and securely and they can retrieve it and manipulate it at anytime they do not care how much space it needs.
So I would have to say it is not that efficient programmers are no longer important or needed, it is just that very few companies/users reward people for being super efficient programmers, and because of the hardware being better we are getting away with being less efficient. But there are at least still people out there focusing on efficiency and because of the community spirit everyone in time gains benefit from this. 897